The October Man: A Rivers of London Novella

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And just like the regular books, this offers as rich a picture of it's setting as those do. Which is educational if you don't know the places. Aaronovitch's UF writing is rather unique in that his mystery writing is unparalleled, the magic system is firmly grounded, explored, and interesting, and the MC in Peter is just a lovable nerd. Never mind that he's an apprentice wizard working for the London police force or a small subsidiary called the Folley, this is really just a fantastic police procedural full of unpredictable mysteries and grabbing reveals. In the interview, Ben mentions that he doesn't have a 'meta' plot all worked out for the series, that his philosophy is 'take care of the story and the meta will work itself out.' I think that explains a great deal about the immediate and meta plotting of the books, which might prove unsatisfying for those who look for an explicitly "progressing" arc rather than episodes in the adventures of life (Note: I too wish my own meta-life would make more progress, but my approach to my own life must be something like Ben's writing). At any rate, my take-away is that Kobna and the series are reassuringly linked. Thank the urban-fantasy audio gods. Or the river ones. The PC Grant Novels. Orion Publishing Group. 13 July 2018. ISBN 9781473214385 . Retrieved 4 March 2023. I have read several of the Peter Grant/London Rivers novels and enjoyed them a lot. They are almost all witty and engaging, with interesting characters and stories. Here in this new setting with new characters of very different personalities the formula works differently. The attempts at humor are so dry as to blow away. I do miss the witty reparteeof Peter Grant etc always. But I did actually like the educational bits. Because of their German, continental focus, it contained new information and a different slant. Perhaps this German group will develop into a more interesting group with time.

But at the end of the day, it's always the writing that hooks me. Aaronovitch does a lovely job of giving us a scene, or Peter's thoughts about how he is approaching something, but he rarely tells us how we are supposed to feel about it. That ability to show without telling seems particularly rare in UF. The suspect's eyes may "glance at" something, but they usually don't "furtive" anything. I don't precisely know how Peter feels about Inspector Seawoll, for instance, although my best guess is that it is a complex combination of respect, fear, and a tiny bit of appreciation. It's a technique I first recognized in Agatha Christie, where people are presented, implications perhaps drawn, but it's left to the reader to draw the conclusions, and they may be different. For instance: "Lady Ty... asked the question again in a tone I recognized from my own mum. The one that says: Yes there's going to be trouble, but that is as nothing to the trouble you are going to be in if you continue to cross me." I had a crystal clear visual/audio on that one, but mine is likely going to be different from yours. There's no "icily," "stonily" or "scathingly" or any other of the hundred routine descriptives I feel pepper the average UF. Wie man sieht, spielt nicht nur wie gewohnt Magie eine große Rolle, sondern liegt der Fokus hier auch – für Trier angemessen – auf dem Weinbau und alles, was dazu gehört. Ben Aaronovitch hat es geschafft, all das miteinander zu verbinden und eine aufregende und magische Detektivgeschichte niederzuschreiben, die wahnsinnig viel Spaß macht. Police Constable Peter Grant; an officer in the Metropolitan Police and the first official apprentice wizard in sixty years. Tales from the Folly is a carefully curated collection that gathers together previously published stories and brand new tales in the same place for the first time. Providing readers with some much-needed breathing space following the intensity of all that Faceless Man action, this tale features a classic down-to-earth mystery taking place in the German city of Trier and introduces a new protagonist. Tobias Winter is an investigator for the Abteilung KDA, Germany’s own version of a supernatural crime fighting force similar to the Folly, and he is also one of the country’s few officially sanctioned magical practitioners. He arrives to the Mosel wine region after a suspicious death is reported in the area, teaming up with local police officer Vanessa Sommer to figure out what happened to the victim whose body was found covered in a grey fungus known as noble rot—an important infestation used in the process of making particularly fine and concentrated sweet wine.Now, I need to take a moment to gush about how great an author Aaronovitch is. His historical and geographical facts are precise and the immersion in the story is 150% thanks to several fantastic details. Such as the narrator reading with a German accent. Or some cultural quirks that the author got 100% right (references to Alfred Biolek, Weimar and more). And the humour (especially that description of Tobias’ parents, how it was „love at first handcuffing)! Spot-on! (Yes, Germans do have a sense of humour. And a great one to boot.) Die Idee rund um die Schutzgeister finde ich übrigens mega cool. Ich kenne die vorherigen Bände nicht, habe aber jetzt richtig Lust darauf, die Rivers of London Reihe zu lesen. Neugierig gemacht hat mich der Autor mit dieser Novelle auf jeden Fall. As a matter of fact, it's very much in line with previous books in terms of quality, plotting, pacing, humor, adventures and misadventures. Peter and the rest of the gang are developing and progressing at their usual pace--I very much enjoyed every scene with Seawoll and Stephanopoulos.

I'm all for more Peter and more (mis)adventures in London. But more faceless mysteries and/or conspiracies? Nah, that's okay. The story manages some good characterisation of the supporting players. It does look as it gets towards the end as if it is going to rush the finale, but manages to wrap itself up neatly and without having to do that.Plotting remains pleasantly unpredictable for me. While the stories ostensibly have a main investigation, Peter leads a busy life. There are opportunities to learn more about magic and its practitioners, Peter's family, the ongoing investigation into Leslie, side investigations such as hunting down the Little Crocodiles, learning about the history of the Folly and so forth. Because of it, both the plots and the pacing often surprise me. I also enjoy that it is very much a 'police procedural.' Peter occasionally goes to a desk, he works a computer, he explains to the reader the structure of a murder investigation within the London police. He frequently has asides to explain the approach and legality of police actions: "Guleed circled around the names and the timeline for twenty minutes, twenty minutes being about the amount of time it takes your average suspect--sorry, I mean witness--to forget the details of the lies they've just told you, before asking about the drugs." Body Work – Starting with a car on a killing spree, with no driver, Peter investigates a Bosnian refugee and a seemingly-harmless wooden bench with the darkest of paths... [11] I'd love to claim that I'd had a gut feeling about the owners, but really it was following routine. In policing, your gut might point the way - but it's the shoe leather that catches criminals. We ain’t in the London writin’ business, we in the magic story business, and cousin, business is a boomin” Join Peter, Nightingale, Abigail, Agent Reynolds and Tobias Winter for a series of perfectly portioned tales. Discover what’s haunting a lonely motorway service station, who still wanders the shelves of a popular London bookshop, and what exactly happened to the River Lugg…