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PaulineMRoss

Pauline's Fantasy Reviews

Reviews of fantasy books, plus some mystery, sci-fi and literary works, and my random thoughts on book-related matters.

Currently reading

Dragon Queen (The Memory of Flames, #5)
Stephen Deas
The Splintered Eye (The War of Memory Cycle #2)
H. Anthe Davis, Erica Dakin

Moon Over Soho (Peter Grant, #2)

Moon Over Soho (Peter Grant, #2) - Ben Aaronovitch This is the second in a series of urban fantasy/police procedurals set in London. They are rather whimsical, in a very British way, so if you’re allergic to self-effacing heroes, dry, understated humour and a severe lack of gun-battles, you should probably avoid this. I liked the first in the series, ‘Rivers of London’ (bizarrely called ‘Midnight Riot’ in the US), with a few reservations, but this one worked even better, I thought. It’s always a problem writing the first of what could be a lengthy series, since you have to establish the characters, the premise and the setting, while also constructing a major plot and weaving in a number of subplots which will run for some time. The second attempt is often much easier with the heavy lifting already done, as it were, and such is the case here.

The big attraction for me is the central character, Peter Grant, a fairly ordinary London copper who has been co-opted into the Metropolitan Police’s ‘magic’ department to train as a wizard after showing signs of magical ability. Unlike many such fantasy works, however, Peter doesn’t become all-powerful overnight, nor does he display unusual levels of ability. On the contrary, he struggles to learn anything at all, his spells often go wrong, and he regularly has to fall back on his not especially quick wits to get him out of trouble, leading to a surprising amount of (very entertaining) destruction of property. He is very male, however, which means that it isn’t always his brain which is doing the thinking, and in this book this leads to some improbably athletic sex.

The other characters are mildly interesting in their different ways, but not particularly compelling. The river spirits, who were a feature of the previous book, have a very small role in this one, and one-time potential girlfriend Lesley (a fellow cop who magically lost half her face in the first book) is sidelined here, but clearly is going to be developed further in future books. It’s a curious thing that almost all the female characters are either termagants (Tyburn, Stephanopoulos) or evil vampire-like creatures (several of those) or in some way weird or eccentric (Molly, Peter’s Mum). Then there’s the one who could be described literally as a man-eater. Ouch.

I do like a book that makes me laugh, and this one is laugh-out-loud funny (for those who get that low-key British humour, of course). I do wonder just how this sort of thing plays elsewhere - all those references to postwar architecture and A-roads and chavettes and Morse, and sly digs at Cheam and the peaceable nature of Glaswegians. Some of it is so subtle that many of the jokes must whizz over the heads of non-Brits. I’m sure I missed a few myself. The descriptions of London - Camden Market and Soho and the Trocadero - are probably less problematic, since the author describes them well enough for the reader to get some idea.

The plot - well, it’s not really the point of a book like this. Let’s just say that it’s a bit flimsy, but it serves well enough to get Our Hero to the appropriate number of setpiece encounters, where his limited magical abilities combined with some improvisation more or less get him out of trouble. As is usual in this type of book, the main plotline is neatly sewn up, with a scattering of characters and incidents left to bubble up in future books in the series. I’m not a big fan of urban fantasy as a rule, as it veers too close to horror for my taste, but this one is milder than the previous book in that respect, and the humour and gentle charm made it a totally enjoyable, if lightweight, experience. Four stars.