Peter Grant - Tumblr Posts

Are they... yknow... 🏳️‍🌈...

THIS! I hadn't been able to put it into words before this but one of the things I really like about RoL and particularly Peter's voice and how he narrates the stories is that he is consistently descriptive rather than cramming description into paragraphs right before something important happens.

Because Peter describes everything all the time but it doesn't get annoying because he generally uses precise, accessible imagery and keeps it short. Plus, his descriptions aren't one and done, if he encounters someone again, he describes them again in a new way, which fleshes them out as you read and reflects the actual human experience of getting to know someone.

Ben Aaronovitch really managed to plop us all inside Peter's brain, complete with his awareness of the world around him and his tendency toward stray thoughts and tangents.

Midnight Riot or, Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovich

I loved this one, but I have have absolutely not clue how to write about it.

So much *stuff* happens. I've written before about the world building first novel and the info dump story.

This is both of those things at once, yet not like them at all. While everything happens and keeps happening in rapid succession, it never feels long winded or overly descriptive.

Set (I think) in 2011 London, it opens with a murder.  Our story is told by Peter Grant, a police constable, who despite a desire to be a great cop, is a tad too easily distracted. But he has an endlessly sharp hyperbolic sense of observation that is both accuate and very funny.

Low officers in the precinct hierarchy, Peter and Leslie (whom Peter has a hopeless crush on) are sent to guard the perimeter of the murder scene. It's a miserable winter morning and Leslie does a coffee run. While waiting, and musing on the inside and outs of police work, Peter is approached by a ghost who saw the whole murder take place.

With the line "just because you've gone mad doesn't mean you should stop acting like a policeman" Peter simply questions the ghost.

The next day he finds out that the higher uos have decided that he's going to be a desk jocky rather than doing anything interesting and he decides to go ghost hunting.

From there, he discovers that there is a secret department of the police that deals with all things supernatural and magical, and that he is to be an apprentice to the only cop in that department.

What follows is a story with anything you can think of. Magic, nature gods manifest as humans, spirits, and there are even mentions of mermaids and vampires.

And through out it all, Peter keeps up a steady stream of commentary. I don't think two lines go by without some sort of wisecracking, and I LOVE it.

There are a bunch more books and short stories in this series, and I have at least part of my list for this year's birthday book haul!