Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch

Review

London police officer Peter Grant discovers that he can talk to ghosts… and is swiftly recruited to the secret, supernatural crimes division of the Met, under the mentorship of Detective Thomas Nightingale. Together they investigate the other side of London: the one with ghosts, demons, gods and goddesses… not all with benign intent.

I whirled my way through this series (Books 1-9… not the 0.5s, etc.) like a woman possessed, devouring them one after another. (Now I have to wait for the next one to come out!) When I read marketing pitch (Harry Potter meets The Bill), I was in. They’re police procedural plus wryly humorous observations plus the supernatural.

I highly recommend the audiobooks, voiced by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith: they are amazing. His interpretations and accents bring the books a whole other dimension.

The series is consistently good. A special shout-out to False Value, which includes some very cool librarian characters and lots of intertextual references to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

These are adult books, so they do include a lot of things like sex (not graphic), violent crimes, and a bit of swearing. However, they don’t focus on those things… they just crop up occasionally.

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