National Book Lovers Day - Rivers of London

Occasionally you come across a book, a set of characters and a series of plots that absolutely hook you so quickly that you can’t wait for the next instalment to be written. I’m speaking of the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. There are nine books so far, some comics and short stories and a couple of novellas ; the writer assures us that there are more on the way. They are well written, well researched and quirky. They detective stories that are both grounded and magical.

The stories revolve around the career of Peter Grant, an officer in the Metropolitan Police. He is attached to a well-known, but rarely spoken about, special section —“The Folly”—that is responsible for dealing with all the magical events that take place in the UK. It is headed by Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, one of the last officially sanctioned English wizards and —astonishingly— a veteran of the Second World War who looks to be in his forties. Do not be put off ; it is essential to the plot’s background, and it is treated superbly.

There is an hugely characterful multi-ethnic, even international, supporting cast, several of whom are (like Grant’s girlfriend Beverly Brook) river gods and goddesses. There is a dog called Toby, who is sensitive to magic and passionately fond of sausages —and, it eventually turns out, fond of the talking urban and rural foxes who appear from time to time (don’t be put off by this either, because they both inject humour and advance the plot).

What makes the series particularly special is the way in which ethnic, social and sexual diversity crops up all the time and is calmly taken as read. The author also recognizes that there is a wide world south of the Thames (Beverley Brook lives in Wimbledon) and west of the Malverns (Aaronovitch knows his Herefordshire). These are books for adults, and if you read them, you surely won’t be disappointed.

Sarah Thewlis