My name is Peter Grant and until January I was just probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police Service (and as the Filth to everybody else). My only concerns in life were how to avoid a transfer to the Case Progression Unit – we do paperwork so real coppers don’t have to – and finding a way to climb into the panties of the outrageously perky WPC Leslie May. Then one night, in pursuance of a murder inquiry, I tried to take a witness statement from someone who was dead but disturbingly voluable, and that brought me to the attention of Inspector Nightingale, the last wizard in England. Now I’m a Detective Constable and a trainee wizard, the first apprentice in fifty years, and my world has become somewhat more complicated: nests of vampires in Purley, negotiating a truce between the warring god and goddess of the Thames, and digging up graves in Covent Garden …and there’s something festering at the heart of the city I love, a malicious vengeful spirit that takes ordinary Londoners and twists them into grotesque mannequins to act out its drama of violence and despair. The spirit of riot and rebellion has awakened in the city, and it’s falling to me to bring order out of chaos – or die trying.
Honestly Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch has been on my radar for ages, and I just never got around to this series before now. I had amassed a nice sum of Audible credits so this was one of the books I bought on recommendation by Kim Curran. I’m so glad I got the audiobook though, even though the actual book I am sure is amazing, the guy who reads this one is fantastic. Kobna Holdbrook-Smith is a voice genius, and the amount of different accents he can do is quite ridiculous. Onto the actual book then, I described this book as “it’s as if Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett had a beautiful love-child” – that is the best description you can expect from this book. Witty, dark, funny and ridiculous at times it is a bizarre read that you can’t put down. It is one of the best urban fantasies I have ever read, and the characters are fantastic too.
PC Grant is a typical male, one foot in the clouds most of the time and the other excruciatingly aware of the ladies he’s chasing. Detective Nightingale will remind you of Cumberbatch’s Sherlock, and he is eccentric and wonderful. He is a weird man, and sometimes doesn’t explain a lot, for example when “taking care” of vampires, and Grant is left to discover and experiment a lot on his own. The other character I absolutely love and I think will end up playing a bigger role in the other books is the housekeeper Molly, she’s quite strange but I really like her thus far, Leslie and Beverly are also quite interesting at times but they’re just supporting characters actually. There are so many characters in this book that are interesting in so many ways it keeps you on your toes the entire time. The world of London in this series is a lot more exciting and definitely brings the “fantasy” to the urban environment. There’s a lot left to discover in the other books, but this is really a great read. The book has been optioned for a TV series and I think it will translate well to the medium, so we’ll see how it goes but I’ll definitely be excited to watch it.
Svagare 