Rivers of London

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/review/R3645PIXW5X76E/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

Urban Fantasy - Public employee Magic User

If you like Charles Stross's “Laundry” series, you should like this book. I do and I did. This book has the elements of magic meets British bureaucracy, except that where Stross plumbs the line between eldritch horror and spycraft, Aaronovitch places his story in the line between supernatural story and police procedural.

Police Constable Peter Grant is the neophyte introduced to the supernatural world by his apparently native gift for perceiving the supernatural and by a chance encounter with Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale. DCI Nightingale is the lone wolf head of a Metropolitan Police unit that specializes in the occult and supernatural. Nightingale's specialty is appreciated by some and despised and mistrusted by others. Nightingale decides to bring Grant on as an apprentice, and from there is a quick and hurried introduction to the supernatural world of London and the craft of magic.

In Aaronovitch's world, there is magic and ghosts and vampires, sort of, and gods, sort of. The last element is represented by a confusing and complex set of semi-deities that represent the “rivers of London,” including the lost rivers of Tyburn and Fleet and barely known rivers, all of whom are personified by individuals with interests and powers. There is a conflict between “Mother Thames” - representing the estuary portion of the Thames - and Father Thames - representing the upriver, rural river - over turf. This is important because a daughter of Mother Thames - Beverly Brook - seems slated to be a recurrent character/love interest of Grant.

I liked the London setting. I got a work out searching for background on the various places mentioned by Aaronovitch.

The Macguffin of the story involves unexplained, senseless murders, that we learn are tied into the “Punch and Judy” story. Aaronovitch does a good job of setting up the mystery, following the clues and resolving the story. The story moved along at a good clip. Aaronovitch has a light, engaging style which is often delightful. For example:

“Ever since mankind stopped wandering around aimlessly and started cultivating its own food, society has been growing more complex. As soon as we stopped sleeping with our cousins and built walls, temples and a few decent nightclubs, society became too complex for any one person to grasp all at once, and thus bureaucracy was born.”

And:

“The original house had been replaced by an indoor flower market with an arched iron-and-glass roof. Eliza Doolittle, as played by Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, would have bought her violets there before moving off to display the worst cockney accent this side of Dick Van Dyke. When they rebuilt the Royal Opera House in the 1990s, it swallowed up most of the surrounding block, including the flower market.”

Nice observations.

Grant is apparently half West African and half white. His father was a jazz musician and a heroin addict. These are details that play into the story to add dimension to Grant's character. Other than that he seems to be a fairly typical introverted nerd that people who read this kind of book, who are, I believe, typically introverts and nerds themselves, can identify with.

Aaronovitch also introduces Grant's fellow-PC and unrequited love interest, Leslie May, who was badly used by the Punch ghost in this book, and whose future was left open by the end of the book. In addition, we meet Grant's mentor, boss, master, the wizard Thomas Nightingale, who will undoubtedly play a role in future volumes, and the maid of Nightingale's house, “the Folly,” named Molly, who may be a vampire.

This is a fun book. The series should make a nice alternative to the Laundry.