Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch

Reviewed by Kristin

Peter Grant has seen some weird stuff in his time with the police. When Peter first started as a probationary constable, he worried that he would be stuck in some dead-end job processing reports where the most danger facing him would be from paper cuts. But when Peter interviews an eyewitness one night who turns out to be a ghost, he comes to the attention of Inspector Thomas Nightingale, who has a vested interest in all things supernatural. After all, in addition to his decades with the London Metropolitan Police, Nightingale is the last wizard in England. Someone has to deal with the weird stuff.*

The series begins with Rivers of London. Peter is partnered with Lesley May, also a probationary constable, and the two have some truly strange adventures as they await their permanent assignments. When Peter is assigned to work with Inspector Nightingale, he discovers much about the otherworldly aspects of London. The rivers have personalities, or possibly something…more. Evil hides behind innocuous faces, ready to spring forth and consume the innocent.

Peter’s family background has prepared him for the unusual, with a black mother from Sierra Leone and a British white jazz musician father. The family ties are tight, but Peter does his best to go about his business while constantly running into aunties or cousins. The crowd of family acquaintances is immense, which Peter accepts stoically. Sometimes those connections come in handy, after all.

Ben Aaronovitch has an interesting writing background; he wrote for Doctor Who and several publications with varying degrees of quality. After a spell, he ended up working as a bookseller, where he was inspired to create his own original characters, and thus Peter Grant was born. Over the course of the series, Aaronovitch has developed a wide cast of characters and even the smaller personas often pop back up in subsequent books. The characters came to life even more vividly for me as I have listened to some of these titles as audiobooks narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith.

I anxiously await Amongst Our Weapons coming out this April, as Peter has some rather interesting events happening in his personal life, and I expect the magical challenges of his job will continue as well. The weird stuff too.

The series includes:

1. Rivers of London aka Midnight Riot (2011)

2. Moon Over Soho (2011)

3. Whispers Under Ground (2012)

4. Broken Homes (2013)

5. Foxglove Summer (2014)

5.5. The Furthest Station (novella) (2017)

6. The Hanging Tree (2016)

7. Lies Sleeping (2018)

7.5. The October Man (novella) (2019)

8. False Value (2020)

9. Amongst Our Weapons (April 2022)

   Tales from the Folly (short stories) (2020)

   What Abigail Did That Summer (short stories) (2021)

 

* Yes, I keep mentioning the “weird stuff,” but Peter does keep commenting on the unusual amount of “weird ____” that happens, making my phrase more fitting for a PG-rated bookblog.