Moon Over Soho: Book 2 in the #1 bestselling Rivers of London series

How to describe / review this book without either sounding demented or giving away the plot. Our intrepid hero Peter Grant is a young English police detective constable of mixed-race heritage and the first apprentice wizard in 50 years. He works for a small, covert department (him and Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale) which investigates crimes with a supernatural origin. In this, the second book of the series, young Peter is called upon to investigate after an otherwise healthy jazz musician drops dead from heart failure - the supernatural element being that his corpse had a strong vestigia of the dead man playing a saxophone solo. Vestigia are magical imprints, a bit like the spooky feeling you get sometimes walking into a strange house - the stronger the magic the object has been associated with, the stronger the imprint. Humans are bad at holding on to vestigia and therefore some pretty serious magic must have occurred for the corpse to be emitting such a strong imprint. A little digging reveals that relatively healthy jazz musicians have been dropping dead from suspected heart failure (which is a code for "we don't know, but his heart stopped") at a steady rate of two to three a year, shortly after playing a gig in the Greater London Area. Peter's other case is a grisly one, involving a creature who bit off a part of the man's anatomy and allowed him to bleed to death (eww), as he traipses from jazz club to jazz club in Soho, he learns more about the reason there are so few wizards left in Britain and finds romance. Peter's father is a famous trumpet player who never got his big break, consequently Peter knows a lot about jazz and jazz musicians. As he trawls the streets and areas of London, making his cynical and humorous asides about modern policing. In a month of disappointing reads Ben Aaronovitch's first two novels have been shining beacons. Clever, funny, engaging, densely plotted and set in my beloved London. It's a treat to run through Soho with Peter, drive through the West End at rush hour and visit less famous areas such as Kentish Town to meet his parents. Someone described this as magic realism - not a term I had heard before - which perfectly sums up this series. Highly recommended.

I put off reading the second book as long as I could as I figured it would be a complete let down after I enjoyed Rivers Of London so much; now I am kicking myself because this book is every bit as good - if not actually more so. The beauty of these books for me is the "voice" of Peter Grant - his narration is sublime and pulls me right in to the story and I think I could be half in love with him. I think it helps that my sense of humour mirrors his, so a tendency to the dark and profanity strewn then. The world building is exceptionally well done with real places being given a supernatural overcoat. From the Jazz Clubs of Soho, where PC Grant has to face his father's past, to Dr Moreau's club (honestly I laughed like a drain when they called it that - mainly because it was already floating through my head and there is nothing like sharing the same headspace with an author as you read). Although I don't know London at all, except though the medium of TV (especially Alan Cumming's wonderful Urban series which spent a whole episode in Soho) it all feels so real that the little pieces of the "weird stuff" that are allowed to permeate them has an unsettling ring of authenticity. The weird and not so wonderful denizens of London are starkly set against the realities of Police work and I enjoy those bits almost as much as the oddities. Even better are Peter's relationships with his fellow officers, his Master, Thomas Nightingale and the women in his life. The fact that Peter is not afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve and get involved with someone who we can immediately see is "dubious" to say the least is quite refreshing and even the physicality of their relationship is deal with in such a matter of fact way that I didn't find offputting. I have an issue with "intimate" scenes on the page but somehow the author manages to bypass my inherent revulsion of those. I am in severe danger of becoming a complete and utter fan girl for this series and I recommending it to everyone who I work with that has even a passing interest in reading Fantasy books. Honestly, so far this series is one of the best things I have read in years (and that includes Book Three that I have already demolished).

4 stars! Just as expected, the 2nd book in Aaronovitch's charming series really upped the tone and was an even more pleasureable - and tense - ride through the magnificent streets of London and beyond! The characters feel much more solid than they COULD have during the introductory phase. Having introduced through various means some humanity to the main players as well - be it through injury, painful memories or just thinking with parts below your belt - I found myself not only sympathizing with them more but also liking them much more! Finally, the mystery of this book was much easier to follow than the race through the centuries of the last book, even though the ending was never clear until it was done. In addition, the parallel and connected (?) plots that it seems this author favours (how many things are going on at once???) were much more digestible! Onward to Book 3!