Grant and Nightingale: just magic as London’s newest crime-fighting duo

Peter Grant’s career as a probationary copper in the Metropolitan Police is plodding along nicely until a chance encounter with Inspector Nightingale, the last wizard in England. Soon Peter is battling vampires in Purley, keeping the peace between warring river gods and goddesses and tracking down the murderous spirit of a malevolent Covent Garden thespian.

Rivers of London is a gripping opener to the Grant and Nightingale crime series. Author Ben Aaronovitch’s wryly humourous interweaving of the fantastical with the ordinary is completely believable. Nightingale, for instance, is nothing like Harry Potter. “Because I’m not a fictional character.”

Pure magic.