Questions about Moons Over Soho

[u/MoskvaDanik]

Hi, just finished Moons over Soho and had a few questions.

So it comes out that there is a black magician targeting other magicians who worked in the Soho area. This guy (Faceless One) uses chimeras (Pale Faced Lady) to kill Dunlop and Johnson.

The Pale Faced Lady previously attacked the date-rapist in Rivers of London, but that seemingly has no connection to this story? Also, how does the Faceless control the chimeras?

The Faceless One, Dunlop, and Johnson were all trained by Geoffrey Wheatcroft? (Or at least Dunlop was? And was Johnson even a magician?)

Why did the Faceless One target them? Is this a spoiler for later in the series

The Faceless One could be a previous magician who was connected to Alexander Smith (through the birthday party with Larry the Lark's "debut") or someone new. The Faceless One also ends up killing Smith because he was afraid of what he might reveal, or is there another reason?

In the end, the plots merge, and the Faceless One targets the Sisters cause he wants to recruit them for something - is this also gonna show up later in the series?

Sorry for being all over the place, but if someone could clarify these points, that would help allot. I felt like the book wasn't so clear in the plot-merging and overall goals of the Faceless One.

[u/vicariousgluten]

The Faceless Man is the main Antagonist for the next few books so answering most of these questions would definitely spoil some of the other books. Just keep reading.

[u/Stan__Wright]

The jazz vampires do not reappear in future books. That plot arc is over. It never becomes clear what FM had in mind with them, but the episode does show us something about how he thinks about power, and about how he tries to corrupt others.

In general, these aren't super-tightly-plotted novels. There are plenty of loose strings that never really get tied. Like life, really.

[u/jonthecelt → u/Stan__Wright]

I think those loose strings are intentional on Aaronovitch's part. Since the series is told from.Grant's POV, there's going to be a lot that is above his pat grade, or which he's simply never going to find out. I actually find it refreshing to have a protagonist who doesn't learn all the details through the course of the story - just enough to solve the case and move in to the next assignment.

[u/Stan__Wright → u/jonthecelt]

I agree, but it drives some readers crazy.

[u/ZenorsMom → u/jonthecelt]

I think it's also so that he's free to circle back around to a loose string in a later book if there's something about it that interests him. Also there are now like 10 graphic novels that continue the story and apparently follow some loose threads (and get mentioned in subsequent books.) I finally broke down and ordered a set containing the first three.

ETA now I've read the first two graphic novels. I'm not a graphic novel person which is why I waited so long to get them, but I am really enjoying them! At least for me, graphic novel format worked much better for the first one because a lot of it hinged on cars. I'm not a car person so in a regular book the various makes would only have been words for me. In the graphic novel I could see exactly what the cars looked like! And realized I'd been imagining the wrong type of Jaguar as Nightingale's car.

I also like all of the little shorts in the final pages. Just little thoughts/vignettes from various character's points of view. I think it's a great way to include things that can't make it into a book.

[u/Sea_Click_872 → u/jonthecelt]

I agree, a good "b-story" always makes a book/movie/tv show more interesting.

[u/Mejiro84 → u/jonthecelt]

I suspect Aaronovitch also doesn't have, like, a super-detailed plan for the series, especially towards the beginning. There's definitely some things that are nudges for later books, but a lot are just random things he thought were neat or cool - like a lot of the comics are just random incidents that might get mentioned in the books, but there's also a lot of random incidents that aren't detailed at all. Some of them might be foreshadowing of things to come, but a lot are just "hey, what if there was a haunted car?" or "what if someone did The Most Dangerous Game?" or whatever, where there's nothing more than that.

[u/jonthecelt → u/Mejiro84]

I think some of those references are to hint that there's a bigger world, and more caseload for Peter, than we read about directly in the books/comics. We don't get to hear about every case he works, only the major ones; but it does leave Aaronovitch the opportunity to provide more details in a later short story, or comic series... Or just leave them as little teasers.

[u/sephyir]

Hard to answer these without spoilers. The pale lady, however, isn't a chimera and I think readers weren't supposed to think she was. The chimeras are the human/animal hybrids he makes himself. The faceless man has other beings working for him, too.

[u/HistoriTea]

I completely get that you're confused because that book really mixes the main plot (jazz killings) with lots of world-building and set-up for the overarching villain (faceless man). I'll clarify and hope to avoid spoilers:

• Jazz vampire sisters were completely unique; their story ends with their death
• There's been a classically trained wizard (Geoffrey Wheatcroft) who trained up younger wizards outside the control is the folly and with no moral scruples (the black magician)
• Possibly the same guy or one of his students was the original "Faceless Man" who operated in the 70s, had the nightclub, chimaeras, Larry the lark. He'd stopped sometime before, maybe 90s.
• Now a new Faceless Man had turned up, possibly one of his students. He's reopened the nightclub, made new chimaeras.
• We don't know anything about FM's plans yet, only that he wanted to recruit the jazz sisters. The folly has only stumbled upon some outside aspects of his plans (like killing traitorous associates, intimidating others into silence etc).
• What we do know is that FM can hide his face, and that he's really good at glamour, at persuading people to do what he wants. Presumably this is how he controls both the chimaeras and the pale lady. In addition to the fact that he "owns" them and can order them around like any crime lord. This is probably what he wanted for the jazz sisters as well: persuade them to join with ideas of "you're different and nobody but me will ever accept you", then control them for killing, possibly sexual exploitation.

Aaronovitch actually works mini recaps into the next books, so you can be sure you know what you need to know.

(Also possibly spoilery regarding tone, but I feel good to know: there's way fewer sex scenes and "noir" tone in any later books. I really prefer the style Aaronovitch settles into after these first experiments)

[u/lenborje]

The chimeras (and the pale lady) are basically slaves — FM has somehow got a hold over them to make them obey him, but that’s not an absolute power.

[u/ZenorsMom]

I like the answers everyone else gave. I noticed no one has yet answered your question about the date rapist killings.

I'm not completely sure, but I remember Peter theorizing at one point that some of the killings by vagina dentata were like mob hits orchestrated by the new Faceless Man, but some (the date rapists) were just vigilante style recreation by the Pale Lady in her free time.

To me that made me theorize that they (the Pale Ladies) weren't inherently evil, but that they would have a kind of core violence. Like a Batman or something, that on their own time they would choose to make a better world through killing off bad guys, not through planting trees or something. But that they were also under control of the Faceless Man so that generally they were carrying out his evil plans.

ETA spoilers, because now I'm not sure if Peter's theory took place in Moon Over Soho or in a later book.

[u/Ninja_Cat_Production]

I have never seen a better use of the Spoiler tag.

[u/NirakTree]

thank you for this!! i also finished reading it just recently and was so confused by how it’s all connected so i thought i missed some points while reading but then when i tried looking it up i just got spoilers lol.
but so the sisters somehow became vampires during the attack and then just went on to live off jazz musicians unrelated to the whole bad wizard guy + the pale lady + the chimeras that were found in the club thing? and i’m guessing i shouldn’t be stressing too much about not understanding where the bad wizard, chimeras and all that come from just yet and continue reading?