GIVE ME THE MOONLIGHT
When the first of Ben Aaronovitch’s PC Grant series, Rivers of London, was published in 2011, I remember seeing the distinctive cover design – and walking away from the display without even reading the blurb. I assumed it would be another rather gruelling slice of contemporary fiction where nothing ends well, for characters who don’t deserve happy endings anyway. I admit it now – I was very wrong. When I said I was thinking of giving the books a go, one friend (a fan) described them as “Harry Potter for adults”; while another smiled as soon as I asked. I always take that as a good sign. Let me confess I have never read Harry Potter, so I can’t say how accurate that description is, but I completely understand the smile.
Rivers of London is a winning combination of police procedural (including a pathologist, but nothing too grim) and low-key magical realism. This opening book in the series deals with a spate of strange and horrific deaths across London, centred on Covent Garden, which are soon shown to be of a supernatural nature. The Metropolitan Police has a wizard on the staff – of course! – and the hero, PC Peter Grant, at the end of his probationary period, shows natural ability and becomes the wizard’s apprentice. There are spells and magical beings, alongside the prosaic world of police investigation in the twenty-first century. It sounds a very unlikely mix, and yet it works. Certainly, I was so enthusiastic about this first book in the series that I bought the second as soon as I put it down (and I have the third waiting for me to start as I type!).
As beguiling and fun as it might be to mix the mundane and supernatural – and there’s plenty of entertainment to be found in the confrontations between the no-nonsense coppers of the Met and their magically-gifted colleagues – a series needs more than an extension of this “odd couple” joke to succeed. That’s where Ben Aaronovitch has done something very clever; in amongst the fun, the grand guignol horror and the magical themes, he develops likeable characters, so vividly drawn that I cared about what happened to them next. The hero Peter Grant is clever, amiable and charming in a street-smart way. He’s from a mixed-race background, and this is significant; the “institutional racism” of the older Met officers isn’t always hidden, and makes Peter’s easy acceptance of his new role as sorcerer’s apprentice credible because you get a sense that he has had to become adept at living between worlds already. Peter is completing his probation alongside PC Lesley May, another very likeable character tipped for success as a traditional “thief-taker” and the object of his affections. While we get to know these young protagonists well, other key characters are understandably more shadowy. There are, for example, hints at the past of the wizard himself, Detective Inspector Thomas Nightingale – I was certainly intrigued enough to want to find out more about him.
Another hook for me (and the reason I returned to consider the series in the first place), is the setting; London. I’d go so far as to say that London is another key character in the books. Aaronovitch writes with affection and knowledge of the complex, multi-layered city, and it is easy to believe that so many centuries of activity have left their psychic and magical fingerprints. The heritage and legends of London are all woven into the story, and as a lover of the city I was interested to learn new tales and delighted to recognise favourite locations.
So – steering carefully clear of spoilers – I moved on to the second book in the series, Moon Over Soho. The focus of the criminal/magical action shifts from Covent Garden to Theatreland, Chinatown and Soho – and we learn more about all of our main characters. I have devoured second books before, and been disappointed when the attempt to reproduce the successful formula of the first felt just too formulaic. For my money, Moon Over Soho manages to avoid that, by a subtle shift in tone, and by tempering the action with a note of melancholy. Peter is beginning to understand and explore the cost of magical involvement and practice, and those he loves do not escape unscathed. I found the wrong-doers of this second novel more sinister than in the first and there are definite “shivers down the spine” moments. That said, the book ends on an optimistic and slightly mysterious note, leaving me excited about the next instalment.
The Rivers of London series now embraces graphic novels and a novella – plenty to keep me in light reading for some months yet – and with further books in the pipeline. Will Ben Aaronovitch maintain the ingenious charm of these openers? There’s a lot to live up to, and I suspect murky waters may lie ahead; but Peter Grant feels like a man I can trust to see me through.
Reviewed by Elaine Hook
