Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch – Review

Published: February 1, 2011

Publisher: Del Rey Books

Series: Rivers of London #1

Genre: Fantasy, Mystery

Pages: 401 (Kindle)

My Rating: 4.0/5.0

Synopsis:
Probationary Constable Peter Grant dreams of being a detective in London’s Metropolitan Police. Too bad his superior plans to assign him to the Case Progression Unit, where the biggest threat he’ll face is a paper cut. But Peter’s prospects change in the aftermath of a puzzling murder, when he gains exclusive information from an eyewitness who happens to be a ghost. Peter’s ability to speak with the lingering dead brings him to the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, who investigates crimes involving magic and other manifestations of the uncanny. Now, as a wave of brutal and bizarre murders engulfs the city, Peter is plunged into a world where gods and goddesses mingle with mortals and a long-dead evil is making a comeback on a rising tide of magic.

---

Midnight Riot (called Rivers of London in the UK) is a delightfully fun supernatural police procedural novel and I’m a little sad that I’ve waited so long to pick it up. It was hilarious, action packed, and even somewhat disturbing but I loved it! 

Peter Grant is soon to get his big boy assignment on the police force when he’s pulling guard duty at a murder and sees a ghost – but he doesn’t know it’s a ghost and goes to interview it. When he drops this info sarcastically into conversation with Inspector Thomas Nightingale his life take a bit of a turn. You see, Nightingale is London’s only wizard detective and Grant has just become his new apprentice. The book is a fun balance between Peter Grant learning about magic and the supernatural side of the world and bloody murders where the attackers face melts off afterward. It’s absolutely ghoulish at times and certainly will keep readers on their toes.

This book is a great start to what is currently a 9 book series with several novellas and at least one short story collection thrown in. It’s a tremendous amount of material and I for one am looking forward to exploring the Peter Grant series in the coming months (or perhaps years). Grant has an excellent main character voice with loads of humor that actually made me laugh aloud. The world building was just barely touched upon and we were introduced to river gods and goddesses, all sorts of ghosts, and the fact that magic is a known thing that is sort of just rolled into the bureaucracy. 

I greatly enjoyed this story and found the narration by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith to be top notch. The audiobooks are a great way to check the series out. I was so enthused that I’ve already sped through Moon Over Soho as well – keep an eye out for that review soon!