Moon Over Soho [Mass Market Paperback]

After his memorable introduction in Midnight Riot, London Constable Peter Grant is back in Moon over Soho, the latest offering from Ben Aaronovitch. Grant and his long-lived commanding officer Thomas Nightingale are the "magic police." They're sort of like a two-man BPRD (from Hellboy), "bumping back" at the things that go bump in the night. When members of London's jazz community start dying of suspicious causes, Grant gets involved, only to find that his "jazz vampire" case is just the tip of an iceberg that includes supernatural predators, gangsters, reanimated corpses and some very dark magicians.

Part urban fantasy and part police procedural, Moon over Soho gives us a much deeper look at London's magical community, such as the defunct school for magic (yes, Aaronovitch has a Hogwarts joke), Nightingale's past, magical involvement in global conflicts, and a circle of dark magicians who give Grant and Nightingale a much needed nemesis, and promise to wreak much havoc in future novels. As in the first book, Aaronovitch's brisk pace and razor sharp dialogue (plus loads of sex and violence) keep you engaged throughout the story, and leave you wanting more.

I was impressed by Midnight Riot, and its sequel did not disappoint. This is one of the best of the more recent urban fantasy series, and fans of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series and Mike Carey's Felix Castor novels will definitely want to check out Aaronovitch's work. Start with Midnight Riot and then come back to Moon over Soho.

To begin with, Aaronovitch writes really well and his protagonist is likeable: intelligent, slightly geeky, and charming. The magic in his London co-exists with cell phones and iPads (which, rather as in William Gibson, date-stamp this book for all time). Actually, co-exists is not quite the right word, since one of Peter Grant's problems in life is not blowing the chips of computers around him, as well as paperwork and not seriously upsetting his superiors. He deals with these difficulties more successfully than Harry Dresden has so far, but he has more allies, better luck with women, and a well-drawn family. Although all is not gas and gaiters, Aaronovitch is less relentlessly noir than either Butcher or Mike Carey and less supernatural than Richard Kadrey. I like all of these books but it's nice not to feel doomed sometimes.

Moon Over Soho picks up a short time after the events of Midnight Riot, which you may need to read to understand some of the characterization in this book.
I read the first book only a couple of weeks ago, and I was impatient to read the next one. It did not disappoint and now I want more.

Magic, mayhem and the Met again, mixed in with jazz, evil wizards and accidental necromancy. Someone is killing the jazzmen of London and there's a strange kind of rapist-killer stalking the clubs. Constable Peter Grant finds out more about his mentor, their strange housekeeper, and what happened to his famous father's musical career. Along the way he does a lot of shagging on rooftops and underfurnished apartments, perhaps as a way of coping with the awful things he keeps finding in basements.

One of the good things about Rivers of London was that no one was safe. The streets are in chaos, the victims are random, some survive and some don't. Hero Peter Grant's best friend and lust object ends up horribly disfigured, and in both Rivers of London and Moon Over Soho we see Grant struggling with his sense of responsibility for that - and in particular whether magic can restore what magic destroyed. This feeds in to his desire to understand the source of magic and its relationship to life or life-force. It's an interesting illustration of a post-Enlightenment, scientifically trained mind trying to come to turns with the irrational, with something which doesn't fit into one's understanding of the universe and how it works. Although Grant seems oblivious to the fact that Greater Minds Than His have struggled with the same questions (a character oversight which at this stage I can only hope is intentional or Aaronovitch's part).

But what I liked about this aspect of Moon Over Soho is that it gives us a taste of What Happens Next. The victims of the chaos in Rivers of London aren't left behind in the second book; they're still part of Grant's world, as both a copper and a friend, and at least one of them is a victim and possibly and instigator of what follows in Moon Over Soho.

It's a little bit more disjointed that Rivers of London - once again, Aaronovitch throws in interesting factoids about police procedure and London history but sometimes, in Moon Over Soho, they come across a bit non sequitur-ish - Where is this going? What is this doing here? But Moon Over Soho is still an engaging read, with a good set-up for the next in the series.

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