THREE CHEERS FOR SNARKY BRITISH URBAN FANTASY.
I didn’t know I was looking for this series, the PC Peter Grant series. I actually had it checked out from the library and let the loan expire the first time around… thanks, The Devourers, for taking so long to slog through that I had to wait to get Midnight Riot back again before I could dive into this world! I love this world, this miraculously sarcastic world where a newly-minted London police constable with a probably lateral trajectory is tapped as a magician’s apprentice… and then the murders begin (sorrynotsorry).
This novel is a mashup of a lot of wonderful things, and is written so delightfully without being overly self-congratulatory that I want to recommend it to anyone who is listening: read it! you will love it! it’s a goddamned delight!
Fair warning: it’s not life-altering. It’s not literary. But it’s excellent in tone, thrilling in plot, unpredictable, and totally solidly true to itself.
Set in present-day London, Aaronovitch has given himself the challenge of combining modern day technology and police practices with the fictional traditional of magic, training, and magical creatures. He balances it all excellently, and keeps track of the details perfectly, leaving no open plotholes, or breaking up any character arcs.
The narrator, young Peter Grant, is delightful, self-aware, self-deprecating, and a unwillingly honest burgeoning hero who answers the call. When I was half-way through Midnight Riot, I had already borrowed the second book, Moon Over Soho from the library, and put a hold on the third, Whispers Under Ground. I’m all in with this series, totally sold, and dropping everything else to eat them up.