Rivers of London, Ben Aaronovitch

Rivers of London is a good old traditional police procedural set, as the title suggests, in London. But this is a London where ghosts are real, magic is an actual thing, and the rivers are populated by very independent-minded and often cantankerous gods. The structure is supplied in chief by the police procedural genre, and events are narrated in the first person by PC Peter Grant, a true Londoner with a dry wit. The plot is built on a nexus of myths and legends about the London area, cleverly updated to fit this magical vision of the present day. The novel is part of a series focused on the career of Peter Grant, which at this point includes two more books, Moon over Soho and Whispers Underground.

PC Grant is about to qualify as a police officer, and is determinedly trying to avoid being assigned to an office job in the Case Progression Unit. He is also trying to seduce his colleague, Lesley May, with equal determination. On the morning of his career progression interview, he is pulled out of bed early to guard the perimeter of a crime scene. The body of a man has been discovered by another, very drunk man, so a murder investigation is under way. Once everyone has left the scene, Grant is approached by someone claiming to have witnessed the crime. Only the witness happens to be dead himself. Faced with the ghost, Grant reasons ‘just because you’ve gone mad, doesn’t mean you should stop acting like a policeman’, and decides to pursue the ghost lead in the hope that it might help him avoid the Case Progression Unit.

This brings him to the attention of Thomas Nightingale, the tall, dapper last wizard in England, who takes Grant on as the first apprentice wizard in fifty years. Together, they proceed to investigate the supernatural aspects of the case, which seem to centre on the legend of Mr Punch. Through the investigation, Grant comes to meet the goddess of the river Thames and all her daughters, as well as a motley cast of citizens of London and members of the Metropolitan Police.

The novel is carried by Grant’s likeable character and amusing commentary on London in general and the Metropolitan Police in particular. The use of myth and legend is tasteful and elegant, lending depth to the narrative but not requiring any previous knowledge of the city or its myths for the novel to be appreciated. But what I liked best about it is that it is unashamedly funny, and it does not resort to caricature to achieve this humour. Grant’s wry observations about London, police work and humanity in general invariably made me smile, and occasionally even laugh aloud. At the same time, the plot is brilliantly paced, so that it is actually very difficult to put the book down.

This is one of the books I enjoyed most this year. In addition to the self-contained plot of the murder mystery, there is also a longer story arc that extends through the series, with Leslie May, Peter Grant and Thomas Nightingale at its centre, and it is highly addictive. So while I thoroughly recommend this book, I would advise against buying all three at the same time, since that would probably result in a suspension of real-life concerns until you reach the end of the third one, which would probably turn out to be a bad thing in the long run.