Rivers of London / Ben Aaronovitch

The UK and US titles and covers

In a city as ancient as London there have to be a lot of spirits lurking about, so Peter Grant and his mentor are a sort of “odd squad” police unit that tackles the supernatural. A series of unexplained murders begins to mirror the plotline of a Punch and Judy script, and the investigation centers on Covent Garden and the Actors’ Church of St. Paul’s on the piazza. People are literally losing their heads over it, and by the end of the novel the market building at Covent Garden is in flames. The story is fresh, and the contemporary London setting is fascinating. Peter Grant is a well-developed character, full of London slang, sarcasm, and witticisms. This might just be Harry Potter for adults.

When we were in London this summer, this series of detective novels was prominently displayed in all the bookshops and newsagents. The cover art is certainly eye-catching. My wife’s curiosity got the better of her and she bought this title, the first in the series, not really knowing much about it. I picked it up and found it a compelling read with an interesting plotline (thought slightly nontraditional) and good characters. It’s a little X-files, but it’s a whole lot of fun. Published in the US as Midnight Riot.

9/7 Read Moon Over Soho which had a lot of Peter Grant in it since both Lesley and Inspector Nightingale were on medical leave. Interesting insight into Soho, what traditionally has been the "naughty" area of London. Also interesting tie-in to the Blitz and the London jazz scene.

The original UK cover images for the first three books.

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Murder in Passy, An Aimée Leduc Investigation / Cara Black

If you like your mysteries set in European locales, here’s a Parisian detective series that is sure to please. Aimée Leduc is a private eye, born of a French career detective and an absentee American mother (brief hints of angst over this in this installment). She’s appeared in about ten adventures, always set in iconic Parisian neighborhoods : Murder in the Marais, Murder in the Bastille, Murder in Montmartre, and Murder in the Latin Quarter , to name a few. In Murder in Passy (Paris’s tony XVIe arrondissement), Aimée finds herself mixed up in a murderous intrigue involving the French arm of the Basque nationalist movement. The final chase involves the kidnapping of a Spanish princess, a secret torture chamber used by the Gestapo in WWII, and a rooftop escape. The author sprinkles enough French words into the dialogue to either annoy you or make you feel your French 101 was not for nothing— Zut alors! très chic, c’est parfait, désolé, c’est tout! Oh, and Aimée’s frequent stop...

The Silent Patient / Alex Michaelides

A woman viciously murders her seemingly doting husband. We meet up with her several years later in a mental facility, where a therapist tries to get her to speak and to reveal her story. Who is innocent and who is the victim? The answer isn’t straightforward. The resolution to the novel features a real twist that will have the reader questioning the chronology of the different narrative threads in the book. A real page-turner.

Addie Pray / Joe David Brown (more recently published as Paper Moon ) Click here to check for availability at AFPLS This 1971 novel was the inspiration for the Peter Bogdanovich movie Paper Moon . Eleven-year-old Addie and her maybe-father “Long Boy” Moses Pray crisscross the Deep South “ramifying” (scamming) people during the Great Depression. Addie’s street smarts and perceived girlish innocence, along with Long Boy’s cleverness and shrewd business acumen build their operation until they are dealing in millions. The movie remained pretty true to the first half of the book (though it moved the location from Alabama to Kansas), but the adventures continue far beyond where the movie left off. The decades haven’t dimmed the magic of this rollicking adventure, either in the film or the book. ©Ken Vesey, 17 June 2010

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