The idea behind the project is to get me reading different genres and to discover new authors. Not that that has stopped me spending about £15 in Waterstones while waiting for the book to arrive... #incurablecompulsivebuyer
I've finished the second book I was sent - the first being one I'd chosen myself from its description, "A Spoof Fairytale", but that was actually one I already owned!
This time around I was sent "Rivers of London" by Ben Aaronovitch and the cover immediately told me that it was one of a best selling series.
Here's what I thought.
First Impressions
The cover is interesting and immediately screams "murder mystery book". What with the giant pool of blood and red font. The blurb is just about enough of a hook for me to consider flicking through the book, were I coming across it in a book store. I would certainly give it the Page 63 test. (You know, where you pick up a medium thickness book and read that page and if you are interested even without all the previous context, it's probably going to be interesting for you. Not sure if p63 is the definitive page number, but it's the one I use)
I sat down and read the first page and I started to chuckle pretty early on - it's written with loving teasing at the stereotypes we enjoy portraying the Metropolitan police. A quick read of Ben Aaronovitch's background tells the reader that he has lived his whole life in London and loves it a great deal - this comes across in his writing throughout the book. He clearly knows it VERY well.
Synopsis
"The Rivers of London" is a magical realism murder mystery told through the eyes of Peter Grant, a young constable who desperately wants to be a detective but almost gets put on desk duty because he is "easily distracted".
After a chance encounter with a ghost, he is placed under the leadership of Inspector Nightingale, whose specialty is in the supernatural. He is a wizard and after some convincing, takes Grant on for a decade long apprenticeship.
As a series of gruesome and violent murders occur, it's up to Grant and Nightingale to find and stop the source and bring peace back to the streets of London. Along the way, Grant encounters old Newtonian magical orders, water spirits, river gods and goddesses and vampires.
The book
There were many elements of the story, the magic-meets-science side of it, that struck me as familiar. It was hitting themes of my Natural Science in History course at university - the development of science out of changing ideas about the natural world from c.1500-c.1700. The course begins with the Renaissance world-veiw of Christianised Greek philosophy, at revolutions in medicine, anatomy, astronomy, examines the rise and fall of witchcraft and magic, and asks how much of modern attitudes to nature had been forged by the era of Isaac Newton.
That's just an aside. The story is well-written and full of historical knowledge of London - whether the facts were real or made up, I've not yet verified - as well as engaging characters.
The plot was well-paced enough to keep my interest and the protagonist was a middle-of-the-road sort of character who experienced some growth, but was enough of a vessel to be the reader, too. There weren't enormous plot twists but that didn't mean the climax wasn't exciting or enjoyable to read. When I finished and then went on to the first chapter of book 2, I did want to continue reading, to see where the story would go next.
Overall, a solid 4/5
The plot was well-paced enough to keep my interest and the protagonist was a middle-of-the-road sort of character who experienced some growth, but was enough of a vessel to be the reader, too. There weren't enormous plot twists but that didn't mean the climax wasn't exciting or enjoyable to read. When I finished and then went on to the first chapter of book 2, I did want to continue reading, to see where the story would go next.
Overall, a solid 4/5
