The blurry lines between crime and fantasy writing keep on getting ever more fluid, and Ben Aaronovitch's 'Rivers of London' series is a perfect amalgam of police procedural in a world we know well but where magic intervenes and the job of police constable Peter Grant is impossibly complicated as a result. This 4th volume takes our hero and his cohorts south of the Thames into a world of familiar high rises where spells and the supernatural defy the laws of nature to sometimes hilarious effect. Terribly enjoyable stuff, as if Terry Pratchett had lost his whimsy and turned into Ed McBain but not forgotten the best jokes. You'll read this with a wide smile across your face.
Ben Aaronovitch has stormed the bestseller list with his superb London crime series. A unique blend of police procedural, loving detail about the greatest character of all, London, and a dash of the supernatural. A mutilated body in Crawley. Another killer on the loose. The prime suspect is one Robert Weil; an associate of the twisted magician known as the Faceless Man? Or just a common or garden serial killer? Before PC Peter Grant can get his head round the case a town planner going under a tube train and a stolen grimoire are adding to his case-load. So far so London. But then Peter gets word of something very odd happening in Elephant and Castle, on an housing estate designed by a nutter, built by charlatans and inhabited by the truly desperate. Is there a connection? And if there is, why oh why did it have to be South of the River? Full of warmth, sly humour and a rich cornucopia of things you never knew about London, Aaronovitch's series has swiftly added Grant's magical London to Rebus' Edinburgh and Morse's Oxford as a destination of choice for those who love their crime with something a little extra.
For all the murder and mayhem, this is a darkly comic read with characters you can't help but like. - THE SUNDAY EXPRESS
Author
About Ben Aaronovitch
Ben Aaronovitch was born and raised in London and all his work has reflected his abiding fascination and love for what he modestly likes to refer to as the 'Capital of the World'. He works as a bookseller when he is not writing novels and TV scripts.
