Last week I found the delicious Peter Grant series of London copper/wizard adventures by Ben Aaronovitch (read review of Midnight Riot here) and quickly requested the next book, Moon over Soho. Wow. What an excellent piece of fun/fantasy/true crime/romance/interior design critique!
Our hero, Peter Grant, gets deeper into magic and stumbles across the dark side. We have at least 3 mysteries happening:
The jazz vampire
The gonad gourmet
The repulsive faceless guy
And if not already covered by one of the above, the magician behind the Strip Club of Dr. Moreau
The complex plot fits together and I didn’t have to go back and forth to clear up loose points. Once again Aaronovitch brings us quirky, interesting characters and bit players, with lots of London tourist guidance all carefully layered into a fast, nifty plot. I won’t spoil the story but be aware that Peter manages to cause tens of thousands in damages when he dragoons an ambulance and dumps the ambulance-ee into the Thames. Then there’s the helicopter problem, the demon traps, his girlfriend’s missing face, his other girlfriend’s obsession with jazz….
Happiness is Learning Latin While Catching Bad Guys
Several Amazon reviewers compared the Peter Grant series to Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden books, I suspect because both series have the wizard-in-the-big-city motif, but the two are completely different. Aaronovitch’s book has darkness and evil (the jazz vampires were bad by accident) but they are happier and happy-go-lucky Peter relishes the good and is joyfully ensconced in the police, apprehending bad guys.
Detective Inspector Nightingale, Peter’s boss, is training him to be a wizard and we get a glimpse of the not-much-like-Hogwarts school for magically inclined folks that Nightingale attended back before WW1. The school is long closed and Peter has to learn the magic formae with Nightingale’s help, hundreds of hours of practice, with the aid of obscure Latin texts.
Peter is a bit scattershot. His friends and bosses all tell him to focus, but I think he is focused, he just lets his mind wander down the side tracks and dusty alleys of everything else that’s going on. He works by intuition. I like the guy.
Architecture and Bad Interior Design
One thing I loved about all the Peter Grant books so far are the asides and running commentary on the quality (dismal) of the architecture and interior furnishings where Peter goes. We see nightclubs with gold and crimson flocked wallpaper, interview rooms shoehorned into former closets, offices with cheap wallboard and stack box (I assume another term for knocked down/you assemble) furniture, not to mention Tupperware office buildings. I notice buildings and the art – or lack of it – in offices and it makes me queasy to see some of the atrocious decorating. (Where I used to work replaced their modest wall art including a couple very nice paintings with enormous photographs of unhappy looking people. No idea why but it was depressing.)
Summary
If Moon Over Soho intrigues you, then stop now and start with the first novel with Peter Grant, Midnight Riot (aka Rivers of London.) You can catch up on the characters and back story if you start with Moon, but you’ll enjoy the book more if you read them sequentially. Besides Midnight Riot was wonderful, so do yourself a favor and read it.
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