davidgillon | Not So Currently Reading

I've started in on reviews for all of Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series, but it's impossible to review the later books without a major spoiler for book 1, so I'm posting that first and padding it out with a review of the first Rivers of London comic book

Rivers of London, Ben Aaronovitch

Peter Grant is your standard London beat cop (give or take his Sierra Leonean heritage); or he will be if he can finish his probationary year without being assigned to do paperwork for people who better fit the traditional mould of a real copper, people like his friend and fellow probationer Lesley. Then a man is found murdered in Covent Garden, attacked so brutally he was decapitated. The murder squad move in, do their job, and leave Peter and Lesley to watch the scene overnight, which is when Peter meets the ghost.

Everything he knows about the Met screams at him not to mention the ghost, and everything he knows about policing tells him he can’t ignore a witness, especially not one whose evidence turns out to match the video footage. With paperwork looming, and Lesley getting an unheard of assignment direct to the murder squad, there’s only one thing for a copper to do - investigate it himself. Which is when Peter runs into DCI Thomas Nightingale, who is older than he looks, and the only wizard on the staff of the Metropolitan Police.

Peter might not have what the real coppers are looking for, but he has what Nightingale’s looking for, and paperwork is averted as he finds himself transferred into Nightingale’s one-man division, 'the Folly', operating out of the eponymous building, which looks remarkably like a one-time Gentleman’s Club that hasn't been updated since WWII, and fed and cared for by the silent Molly, who appears to be rather less than human.

And so begins Peter’s introduction to the world of magical London, where fire investigators can turn out to be ex-paras with a handy supply of thermite grenades, where Scottish gastroenterologist Abdul Haqq Walid is the leading expert on cryptopathology, aka the forensics of the weird, and where there’s a power struggle ongoing between the upper and lower reaches of the Thames, as represented by the upriver sons of Old Man Thames, and the downriver daughters of Mother Thames (who 60 years ago was a suicidal Nigerian nursing student, until the river made her an offer). Nightingale sets Peter to solve that conflict as a training exercise, while warning him to tread carefully among the Rivers, which would be easier if Beverly Brook wasn’t quite so attractive, and demanding.

And all the while brutal murders keep happening.

Rivers of London is that rare thing, a crossover between urban fantasy and police procedural, and it hits exactly the right note for both. The police culture appears absolutely flawless, while magical London slips easily into its shadows. This could have been another run of the mill urban fantasy, but Aaronovitch lifted it well beyond that.

(Apparently the US title is 'Midnight Riot', for who knows what marketing reason.)

Content warning: Not a book to read if violence towards infants upsets you

Rivers of London: Body Work, Chapter 1: Making Other Plans Ben Aaronovitch et al
Rivers of London makes the jump to comic book in this story (set between Book 4 Broken Homes and Book 5 Foxglove Summer) as a car crashes into the Thames and a certain young River goddess tips detective constable and apprentice wizard Peter Grant the wink that he’ll want to take a look, to the horror of DI Miriam Stephanopoulos, who hoped she had a nice simple drowning. There’s no way she’s letting Peter run off on his own, though, so he and DC Sahra Guleed find themselves heading off to trace down a bunch of leads, and an encounter that will forever change their feelings about nice cars.

With Aaronovitch and Andrew Cartmel, one of his old Dr Who scriptwriting partners, handling the writing the story merges perfectly with the main series, but I was delighted by how well the characters have been transformed to the visual medium. Peter, Beverly Brook, DI Stephanopoulos, DC Guleed, and Nightingale are all perfect for their parts. Even Peter’s car is spot on – check the number plate. Stylistically the art is on the realistic end of the comic spectrum – recognisable cars, maps, driving licenses, passports, and so on, and I really like the way the artist, Lee Sullivan, handles facial expressions and posture.

Chapter 1 is pretty short at 22 pages, but does squeeze a properly structured tale into that. There are four more chapters I’ll definitely get around to at some point. Also included for your money are a one-page story involving Beverly and a couple of drunks, a 2-page guide to Peter’s London, in this case Putney, home to a certain Ms Brook, and 2-pages on BMWs (there is a story link to this, though a fairly tenuous one).