These, as Maria von Trapp would have it, are a few of my favourite things: 1. Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere; 2. The city of London; and 3. chocolate. Rivers of London just about covers two of these three, so it’s a good start. The book is about PC Peter Grant, newbie in the Metropolitan Police. Peter is basically an intelligent underachiever facing a long career in paper-pushing from behind a dreary desk in an uninteresting outer borough while the colleague-slash-friend that he fancies sees him as […]
Is there such a thing as a jazz vampire?
This is the second book in the books about DC Peter Grant and as such, this review may contain certain spoilers for book one, Rivers of London. That’s the book you want to start with. Something is killing jazz musicians in Soho. A promising jazz saxophonist, Cyrus Wilkinson, drops dead of an apparent heart attack after playing a gig. Doctor Walid suspects that something supernatural may have caused it and DC Grant can hear “Body and Soul” playing when he examines the body. Some investigation shows […]
You’re a wizard, Peter. Well, an apprentice, anyway…
Peter Grant is a probationary officer with the London Metropolitan Police when he, one night takes a witness statement from an individual who just happens to be a ghost. Unusual as this is, it saves Peter from a life of tedium in the Case Progression Unit (basically doing other cops’ paperwork for them) and to the attention of Inspector Nightingale, who just happens to be a wizard. Peter becomes the first wizard’s apprentice in England for more than 50 years, but Harry Potter this is […]
London calling to the underworld
Ben Aaronovitch’s Moon Over Soho was the first book I ever reviewed for Cannonball Read (CBR 4, 2012), and I loved it – it was dark, fresh, funny and deep. Broken Homes pales in comparison–both the light and shadow of Rivers of London and Moon Over Soho have faded, and things seem to be deliberately slowed down rather than allowed to proceed at their natural pace. When the book opens, Peter Grant, Nightingale and Leslie are still on the trail of the Faceless man, London […]
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