No one always makes the right decisions, and no one continually makes the wrong decisions.

They’re not invulnerable, nor are they perfect. Aaronovitch has a beautiful grasp on his characters that makes them realistic and fascinating. Just because the world works so well, doesn’t mean the characters would. People are willing to believe it exists and is affecting the crimes they are investigating. The authorities know about it and have taken certain measures. In many ways, this book is a grown up version of Harry Potter. When it looked as if the ramifications of the magic were going to leak out into society and end up on the front page of the news, that’s exactly what happened (though, without it being attributed to magic … I didn’t want the whole world to know what was really going on, and that’s exactly the way that Aaronovitch wrote it). When the crimes were attributed to magic and relayed up the chain of police command, it was taken in stride. When ghosts appeared, people talked to them without freaking out.

I expected similar aspects to Rowling and Griffin’s work, where the magic would be kept under wraps, hidden from the authorities, and would never emerge into the light of day.Įvery time I thought that Aaronovitch was going to write himself into a trope, or a scene where he’d have to take the easy way out, I was surprised.īen Aaronovitch has written a book that never left me disappointed in the choices he made as author, nor in the choices of his characters. I had expected a Harry Potter-esque tale in a world where everyone is slow to grasp what is happening. The quote had immediately put me off when I picked up the book - as had a few things in the blurb. I had been looking for books that were similar to Kate Griffin’s series of books focusing on Matthew Swift, and I came across Aaronovitch’s name (thank heavens for Amazon recommendations).ĭiana Gabaldon is the author of several books and is quoted on the front of the book saying “What would happen if Harry Potter grew up and joined the fuzz”, which in my opinion is a quick and easy way to thoroughly underrate Aaronovitch’s work. That is exactly what happened when I received Ben Aaronovitch’s book ‘Rivers of London’ the other day. There is something eminently satisfying about coming across a new author and finding that he is utterly brilliant.

Rivers of london books