Amongst Our Weapons

What it’s about

A death at the London Silver Vaults leads Peter through family histories, religious artefacts and a supernatural figure pursuing an old grievance.

A death at the London Silver Vaults draws Peter into an enquiry involving objects, family histories and records that do not sit neatly in one period. His impending fatherhood belongs to his life outside the case, while his professional attention remains on identifying what happened and why a material clue matters. The Silver Vaults provide a tangible starting point: a place where valuable things are stored, described and passed on. Peter tells the story with the confidence of a more experienced investigator, though experience does not make an apparently strange account automatically reliable. Expect a London police mystery whose opening asks what an object can carry through time, and who is responsible for the violence attached to it.

Why it works

The case returns to the satisfying pattern of a strange death unfolding through interviews, records and material clues. It also lets Peter’s impending fatherhood sit alongside the investigation without reducing either strand to decoration. The antagonist’s history gives the violence a tragic logic rather than making it random spectacle.

The Silver Vaults are a strong place to begin because they turn an abstract interest in inheritance into a practical question. An item has a maker, an owner, a record and perhaps a disputed account of how it arrived. Peter can investigate those claims in familiar police terms even when the case suggests that the object's significance exceeds its catalogue entry. The connection between a present death and an older grievance is handled as an enquiry into evidence, not permission to excuse any harm.

This volume also lets Peter's changing private responsibilities exist beside his job. Approaching fatherhood does not replace the investigation, and it need not be forced into an easy parallel with every clue. It does change the emotional frame in which questions about what people pass on are heard. The humour remains, but there is a difference between a younger constable making a joke to regain his footing and an experienced investigator using one while he keeps the work moving. That growth is part of the book's quiet continuity.

The pleasure of interviews, records and material traces is particularly clear here. Readers who liked the concrete methods of the early novels will find them recognisable even though Peter's life and competence have changed. A drawback is that a history involving inherited grievances can demand more attention to background than a single contemporary offence. Some listeners may also prefer a story where the domestic material stays offstage. For an established reader, the two strands give the volume a sensible scale: the city remains full of cases, and Peter's obligations no longer stop at the office door.

How the audiobook sounds

Holdbrook-Smith’s settled Peter voice now carries professional maturity as well as humour. He moves comfortably between domestic scenes, formal interviews and supernatural confrontations, making the audiobook feel cohesive even when the investigation ranges widely.

The performance now has a settled professional Peter to work with. His voice can move from a formal interview to an ordinary domestic exchange without suggesting that one side of his life is the serious one and the other an interruption. Those shifts matter because the story's older records and present conversations require different kinds of attention. A restrained delivery helps an account of a family grievance sound like testimony to examine rather than an explanation to accept unquestioned.

Objects are not naturally dramatic in audio. The recording has to make a description, a remembered detail and the question it raises worth following without the benefit of an illustration. Longer sessions help listeners keep the chain of evidence together, though individual interviews suit a shorter journey. The series' established voices provide continuity while new speakers bring their own claims to a case. If you enjoy hearing Peter reason through a material clue with colleagues, this book offers more of that pleasure. If you need to cross-check names and histories as you go, print may be easier to annotate.

Compare every narrator →