Whispers Under Ground by Ben Aaronovitch
Doctor Who Screenwriter Ben Aaronovitch's superbly entertaining supernatural crime series has, with its witty one-liners and wonderfully erudite take on London, won a legion of fans in double quick time.
Doctor Who Screenwriter Ben Aaronovitch's superbly entertaining supernatural crime series has, with its witty one-liners and wonderfully erudite take on London, won a legion of fans in double quick time.
Read: 2020-07-28
Rating: 4/5
Pages: 384
isbn: 9780575097674
For far too many years, friends of mine had been talking of this series of novels, about how they had redefined urban fantasy for them, and how each new release brought them personal joy. I wasn't a reader of urban fantasy, and so I'd ignored them.
Fast forward to last year, and after WorldCon, where even more people from all corners of the fandom had enthused about Peter Grant and the Rivers of London, I finally decided to give them a go.
I've been a die-hard fan ever since.
This may only be the third novel I've read, but I already know that I want to read more. The books are not perfect, for one thing they sort of fall into the category of "copaganda" - Grant is a member of the London Metropolitan Police, an organisation for which I hold no particular love for many personal reasons. The books, however, thrust Grant into a little-known section of the Met; The Folly is that part of the Met which deals with magical crimes, and there is a lot of magical criminality to be found in Grant's London.
I know that I have only lived in London for brief stints, a few months here and there, but so many of the places which feature in the novels are known to me, either by experience or by reputation. Grant's London is akin to the one in the Idris Elba TV Show "Luther", far from the shiny spires of The Isle of Dogs or the Shard, but in the interstices, the alleyways, rivers and forgotten parts of the great metropolis.
This novel goes deeper, in every way, into my favourite part of London - the Underground - and even into the sewers. This is all done so brilliantly, so evocatively, that I found myself transported to this world without difficulty.
Like the other books, the magic in this isn't something which ever threatens the quality of the story, it just is, a thing which Grant and those in his milieu see and explore. Following the events of the last book, his former partner, Lesley May, makes a welcome return, and her presence adds depth and conflict to the book as it continues to thread the needle of both the over-arching narrative and the specific story of the novel.
This is great stuff, solid world building and brilliant character work. If you haven't read the Grant novels, then please, don't be a fool like me and spend ten years ignoring them.
Fast forward to last year, and after WorldCon, where even more people from all corners of the fandom had enthused about Peter Grant and the Rivers of London, I finally decided to give them a go.
I've been a die-hard fan ever since.
This may only be the third novel I've read, but I already know that I want to read more. The books are not perfect, for one thing they sort of fall into the category of "copaganda" - Grant is a member of the London Metropolitan Police, an organisation for which I hold no particular love for many personal reasons. The books, however, thrust Grant into a little-known section of the Met; The Folly is that part of the Met which deals with magical crimes, and there is a lot of magical criminality to be found in Grant's London.
I know that I have only lived in London for brief stints, a few months here and there, but so many of the places which feature in the novels are known to me, either by experience or by reputation. Grant's London is akin to the one in the Idris Elba TV Show "Luther", far from the shiny spires of The Isle of Dogs or the Shard, but in the interstices, the alleyways, rivers and forgotten parts of the great metropolis.
This novel goes deeper, in every way, into my favourite part of London - the Underground - and even into the sewers. This is all done so brilliantly, so evocatively, that I found myself transported to this world without difficulty.
Like the other books, the magic in this isn't something which ever threatens the quality of the story, it just is, a thing which Grant and those in his milieu see and explore. Following the events of the last book, his former partner, Lesley May, makes a welcome return, and her presence adds depth and conflict to the book as it continues to thread the needle of both the over-arching narrative and the specific story of the novel.
This is great stuff, solid world building and brilliant character work. If you haven't read the Grant novels, then please, don't be a fool like me and spend ten years ignoring them.