{"id":4592,"date":"2015-09-27T23:39:16","date_gmt":"2015-09-27T13:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/?p=4592"},"modified":"2016-12-16T17:17:25","modified_gmt":"2016-12-16T06:17:25","slug":"rivers-of-london-by-ben-aaronovitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/rivers-of-london-by-ben-aaronovitch\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Rivers of London’ by Ben Aaronovitch"},"content":{"rendered":"

I absolutely loved Rivers of London<\/em><\/a>, the first in a series of novels about Constable Peter Grant of the London Metropolitan Police, who unexpectedly finds himself apprenticed to a wizard and solving gruesome supernatural crimes. It\u2019s a very entertaining mix of police procedural and urban paranormal (complete with ghosts, vampires, demons, river nymphs and whatever bizarre, blood-sucking creature Molly the Maid is supposed to be), although Peter\u2019s new wizard master, Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, wants to make it clear he\u2019s not Harry Potter:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn what way?\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m not a fictional character,\u201d said Nightingale.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Also, Nightingale travels in a 1960s Jag, rather than on a broomstick. And the vampires definitely aren\u2019t sparkly.)<\/p>\n

\"'Rivers
Paperback cover of UK edition of ‘Rivers of London’ by Ben Aaronovitch<\/figcaption><\/figure>The story involves two strands. In the first, a supernatural serial killer seems to be on the loose in London; in the second, the gods and goddesses connected with the River Thames are squabbling over territory. There\u2019s plenty of blood, action and snarky commentary, and the two narrative strands are twisted together satisfactorily by the end of the book. <\/p>\n

What I enjoyed most, though, were the characters, who are all interesting, funny and realistically multicultural. This shouldn\u2019t be at all remarkable, except I\u2019ve just finished reading several contemporary novels in a row that were set in Sydney or London or New York and yet were exclusively peopled with white, middle-class, heterosexual characters (just like their respective authors, in fact). In Rivers of London<\/em>, Peter, the main character, is London-born, with a mum from Sierra Leone and a white dad who\u2019s a jazz musician (and junkie). Peter\u2019s background is integral to the story \u2013 he has an understanding of certain London cultures that Nightingale lacks, so it\u2019s an advantage to have Peter on the team. Yet the author also acknowledges the realities of being a young black man in London, such as when Peter catches a train and observes the other passengers warily assessing him (\u201cI was sending out mixed signals, the suit and reassuring countenance of my face going one way, the fact that I\u2019d obviously been in a fight recently and was mixed race going the other\u201d). It isn\u2019t all Serious Discussion of Race Relations, though \u2013 Peter, worried he\u2019s about to be sent undercover in a dangerous black community, blurts out to his commander, \u201cI don\u2019t like rap music!\u201d (His confused superior, who\u2019d actually planned to send Peter off to do boring paperwork because Peter gets so easily distracted on the beat, nods slowly and says, \u201cThat\u2019s useful to know.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The other characters are just as real and interesting as Peter. Working alongside Nightingale is Dr Abdul Haqq Walid, Scottish cryptopathologist. Peter\u2019s friend Lesley is a beautiful young blonde who is far better at police work than Peter. Lesley has a \u201cterrifying lesbian\u201d supervisor called Detective Sergeant Miriam Stephanopoulos (who turns out to be slightly less terrifying than Peter first thinks). The Londoners whom Peter encounters during his investigation include a Danish housewife, a Sri Lankan refugee working in a cinema, a Turkish doorman, some white Hare Krishnas and a Nigerian goddess. These characters aren\u2019t diverse because the author is trying to be Politically Correct or a Social Justice Warrior or because someone started up a Twitter hashtag campaign against his books \u2013 this is just what GOOD WRITING looks like.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

There did seem to be a few plot holes \u2013 for example, it takes Peter and Nightingale more than 200 pages to work out what’s going on with the serial killer, when I\u2019d figured it out after the first murder. (Admittedly, there was a big clue in the cover art of the hardback UK edition I read \u2013 and I noticed that that part of the artwork had been minimised and blurred for the paperback cover.2<\/a><\/sup>) Peter also shows a strange lack of curiosity about his new wizard mentor, even though several characters warn Peter about Nightingale. I mean, I know Peter can be a bit dim sometimes, but if I<\/em> was suddenly whisked off to live with a wizard and learn magic, I\u2019d want to know a bit about him. Also, how come Peter can suddenly see ghosts and detect magic only now, as a young man? If he was born with magical abilities, wouldn\u2019t he at least have had an inkling of his powers during his childhood? Maybe this will be addressed in the subsequent books, but I must admit, I was so busy enjoying the story and laughing at the jokes that I didn\u2019t worry too much about the bits that didn\u2019t make complete sense. Apart from Peter\u2019s exciting battles with the supernatural, there\u2019s also a lot of fascinating London history (and a really cool chase scene, with the characters running through London\u2019s history all the way back to Roman times). I\u2019m already a few chapters into the sequel, Moon Over Soho<\/em>, and it\u2019s excellent so far. I\u2019m really looking forward to the rest of this series.<\/p>\n

You may also be interested in reading:<\/p>\n

What I’ve Been Reading : The Peter Grant Series<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

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  1. I have a lot of feelings about this topic, because like Peter, I\u2019m what is called \u201cmixed race\u201d, although that term doesn\u2019t even make sense unless you believe there\u2019s such a thing as a \u201cpure race\u201d (and at least \u201cmixed race\u201d is better than \u201chalf-caste\u201d and the other, even less polite, names I was called at school). I was recently reading an interview with Jemaine Clement about his new film, People Places Things<\/em>, which apparently attracted attention in the United States because it features what Americans call an \u201cinterracial romance\u201d. They seemed to think Jemaine Clement was white and that it was astounding that his character could fall in love with an African-American woman. For one thing, Jemaine Clement’s mother is M\u0101ori, he was raised by his mother and grandmother in an extended M\u0101ori family, and he describes himself<\/a> as both mixed race and a “pale-skinned M\u0101ori person”. As he said<\/a>, \u201cAnything I do is interracial!\u201d Diversity in films (or books) isn\u2019t the creators being brave or challenging or progressive \u2013 it\u2019s just them doing their job properly and SHOWING REAL LIFE. By the way, I haven\u2019t seen People Places Things<\/em>, but I have seen his previous film, What We Do In The Shadows<\/em>, which is extremely funny and charming and is highly recommended if you like spoof vampire documentaries set in New Zealand. ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  2. I should also note that Rivers of London<\/em> was published under the title Midnight Riot<\/em> in North America. Why do American publishers change book titles like that? Okay, yes, there\u2019s a riot that takes place at midnight, but that\u2019s not what the book is ABOUT. It\u2019s about the RIVERS OF LONDON! Also, check out the difference<\/a> between the US cover and the (slightly spoilery) UK hardback cover. ↩<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I absolutely loved Rivers of London, the first in a series of novels about Constable Peter Grant of the London Metropolitan Police, who unexpectedly finds himself apprenticed to a wizard and solving gruesome supernatural crimes. It\u2019s a very entertaining mix of police procedural and urban paranormal (complete with ghosts, vampires, demons, river nymphs and whatever … Continue reading ‘Rivers of London’ by Ben Aaronovitch<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,18],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-4592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-my-favourite-books","tag-ben-aaronovitch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4592"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4651,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4592\/revisions\/4651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}