Jump to content

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch


ian

Recommended Posts

"My name is Peter Grant. Until January I was just another probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police Service, and to everyone else as the filth. 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 Lesley May. Then one night, in pursuance of a murder inquiry, I tried to take a witness statement from a man who was dead, but distrubingly voluble, and that brought me to the attention of Chief Inspector Nightingale, the last wizard in England. And that, as they say, is where the story begins."

 

I picked this up at my local library. This book is a great deal of fun, well written in an easy, page-turning style, with a good mix of action and humour. Anything with a wizard in it is obviously going to be compared to HP, but this manages to tackle that problem early on (in fact on the cover), so once that's out the way, you can just enjoy. The themes are more adult than HP, so beware of giving this to younger teens.

 

The story starts as outlined in the sleeve notes I copied above and from then progresses as Peter attempts to simultaneously train as a wizard/police officer, track a murderer and solve a problem between warring river spirits.

 

My only criticism is that the inital chapters where Peter goes from an ordinary PC to being told that not only does magic really exist, but that he is a trainee wizard, go a little too quickly. I would have liked a bit more disbelief to make it more beleivable!

 

But all in all, I would give this 4 out of 5, and will now need to find the second book in the series " Moon over Soho"

 

 

Ian

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 7 months later...

I started this one this week and despite only being 100 pages in, I'm loving it. He has such a straight forward writing style that it's very easy to immerse yourself in the story and I love the dead pan humour running throughout. Echoes of Pratchett and Stroud.

 

I can't wait to snatch my next half hour of reading.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...
  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

I read this a couple of weeks ago, and I really enjoyed it! A proper detective story with a magical and paranormal twist, and it rattles along at a great pace, and it's funny and original in its own way. As always with any sort of mystery, I like to see if I can figure out where the plot is going early on, and I did get the theme of the murder but not the culprit, although I loved how that was revealed as it was very intriguing to read.

 

As always with a first book in a new fantasy series, there has to be some introduction to both the characters and the world the author is creating, but I thought this was done really well, blended throughout the story, and never felt like it was being shoe-horned in.

 

I will definitely be coming back to the series, and have the next two books on my wishlist already. :smile2:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

I'm clearly in the minority but I wasn't a huge fan of it. :hide: It started off great, and I loved the fun style at the start and the quirkiness of it, but after a while it started to irritate me a little. I never actually realised this before, but I think that I don't particularly like humor in fiction. :o It's the same reason why I didn't like the first in the Jasper Forde series that I tried - which Rivers of London actually reminded me of while I was reading it. I'm not a miserable cow (honest :P ) and it kind of took me by surprise to realise that that is what I don't like. I don't mind when characters say or do funny things, but it seems that when there is a humorous tone through the whole book that it grates on me. Go figure!

Edited by bobblybear
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

Curious about this series, I have the first one in my TBR right now,  maybe I will read a couple of pages tonight....

 

I think you really should read the book, it's sounds really great and a lot of people on here seem to have enjoyed it a lot. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...