Review: The Crooked Sixpence by Jennifer Bell

When their grandmother Sylvie is rushed to hospital, Ivy Sparrow and her annoying big brother Seb cannot imagine what adventure lies in store. Returning to Sylvie’s house, they find it has been ransacked by unknown intruders – before a mysterious feather scratches an ominous message onto the kitchen wall. A very strange policeman turns up on the scene, determined to apprehend them . . . with a toilet brush. Ivy and Seb make their escape – only to find themselves in a completely uncommon world, where ordinary objects have amazing powers. The forces of evil are closing in fast, and Ivy and Seb must get to the bottom of a family secret . . . before it’s too late.

I mentioned in the review that I posted yesterday that recently I have been experiencing a reading slump. I have so many children's books in my TBR pile that look wonderful, but every time I have come to select one to read I have just felt meh! and picked up an adult or non-fiction book instead. The last time this happened (a good few years ago) it took the brilliant Small Change For Stuart by Lissa Evans to pull me out of my malaise, and this time it was this wonderful debut novel by Jennifer Bell, followed in quick succession by Gabrielle Kent's second Alfie Bloom book.

Long time readers of The Book Zone will know that  I am a sucker for any children's or Young Adult story that reimagines London in some way or other. Sarah Silverwood's The Nowhere Chronicles, China Mieville's Un Lun Dun and Tom Becker's Darkside series are all books in this vein that I have loved, but I loved The Crooked Sixpence even more. It's as if Jennifer Bell has been able to scoop up all the most magical ingredients of these other books, blend them together and then bake them into a cake that is even better.

I have also mentioned several times in the past that Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere is one of my all-time favourite books, and The Crooked Sixpence is most definitely Gaiman-esque. In a similar way to what Gaiman did in Neverwhere, Bell takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinary, and in the process has created a truly imaginative (and more than a little bonkers) alternative London society, hidden away from us mere mortals but also living in tandem with our own. And I can't believe that the Lundinor of The Crooked Sixpence is not in some small way inspired by Neverwhere's Floating Market.

The Crooked Sixpence is the first book in The Uncommoners series, with this particular term referring people who keep the secrets of uncommon objects for all off us commoners. Uncommon objects are everyday objects (toilet brushes, lemons squeezers, paperclips... the list is endless) that hold magical properties as a result of containing parts of the souls of the human dead. Thus we have lemon squeezers that give out light, colanders that filter air and paperclips that work as habdcuffs. Jennifer Bell's imagination is up there with the very best of current children's writers, and she must have had enormous fun coming up with all the different alternative properties of these everyday household items.

Ivy and Seb, the brother and sister protagonists have a very typical relationship, whereby sometimes they get on and sometimes they bicker and disagree, but ultimately will do anything to protect each other from harm. Ivy is most definitely the star of this first book, with Seb being much more of a secondary character; she is brave and resourceful, and has joined Abi Elphinstone's Moll as one of my favourite female characters of recent years.

The Crooked Sixpence has something for everyone: action, adventure, magic, a villainous secret society, a crazy alternative world full of weird and wonderful items, and an ages old mystery that is just begging to be solved by Ivy, Seb and their new uncommoner friends. This is a book that I preordered months ago, as there is been a lot of buzz and excitement about it among middle grade bloggers and book sellers in the run up to its release. It is certainly one of my favourite books of 2016 so far, and should have appeal to readers of all ages. Definitely a must-buy to keep your 9+ kids occupied this summer! 

Review: Vowed by Liz de Jager

A Blackhart can see the supernatural behind everyday crimes. But some crimes hide even greater evils . . .

Kit Blackhart must investigate why children are disappearing from a London estate. Their parents, the police and Kit's fae allies claim to know nothing. And as more children disappear, the pressure mounts. Luckily, or unluckily, government trainee Dante Alexander is helping Kit with the case. Yet just as her feelings towards him begin to thaw, his life falls apart. As Kit struggles to unravel Dante's problems and solve their case, she meets fae Prince Thorn in her dreams - but their relationship is utterly forbidden.

Then Kit digs too deep, uncovering a mystery that's been hidden for one thousand years. It's a secret that could just tear down our world.

Time is tight at the moment due to my involvement in getting the Middle Grade Strikes Back project up and running, so please forgive me for copying/pasting the following disclosure from my review of Banished, the first book in Liz de Jager's Blackhart Legacy trilogy: "as long time readers will know, Liz de Jager is a good friend of mine, and Liz acted as a kind of mentor for me when I was first started blogging. All of this means that this is a very difficult review to write as I need to make sure I retain objectivity, and please believe me when I say I am not a sycophant, for the main reason that Liz was string me up and subject me to every kind of pain possible if she thought I was writing a positive review just because I am a friend."

Over the past few months I have mainly been reading middle grade fiction, but Vowed has been sitting on my TBR pile glaring at me, demanding to be read. Truth be told, I finally picked it up because of my friendship with Liz as although I enjoyed Banished, all these months on I did not feel invested enough in the story to promote Vowed straight to the top of my TBR pile. This is no reflection on the quality of Banished or its story, but more my general feelings towards YA at this moment in time. And now I'm regretting my lateness to the Vowed party - I bloody loved it and I just couldn't put it down.

One of my issues with Banished was the character of Prince Thorn, and in my review I mentioned that I didn't find him particularly believable. Thorn takes very much of a back seat in Vowed, and I do wonder whether this contributed to my enjoying this installment more than the first. In his place, as the potential 'will they?/won't they?' love interest for Kit is new boy Dante Alexander, a young member of the government's 'spook squad'. Even though he starts off as a bit of an arrogant shit at the beginning of the book, as the story progresses Dante becomes gradually more likeable, and there is more than a hint of mystery surrounding Dante's background and character. In fact, I would even go as far as to say that Vowed is as much Dante's story as it is Kit's. Fortunately, Aiden is still on the scene, and Kit's continued platonic friendship (a rare thing in a YA urban fantasy story) with the werewolf, a high point of the first book, is developed even further.

Liz de Jager's considerable knowledge of British and European mythology and folk tales is even more evident in Vowed than it was in Banished, as is her love for her adopted city of London. These elements of folklore are so well woven into the story that it is nigh on impossible to determine which are from legend and which are the fruits of the writer's considerable imagination. At times I found myself having to resist from picking up my phone to access Wikipedia to look up a particular reference, and instead had to make a note to check things later. The author also teases her readers with her characters making off hand remarks about previous undocumented events, and also other aspects of the world she has created' leaving us with a feeling that she has so much more to offer beyond this planned trilogy.

Like its predecessor, Vowed has some cracking adrenaline-fuelled action sequences, although they take something of a backseat in this episode. In fact that where I felt that Banished was very much an action urban fantasy story, Vowed is more of a detective/crime story rooted in the author's urban fantasy world.

I gave Banished four stars on Goodreads, and as I enjoyed this book even more I just ahd to give it five. However, it is not without fault and so the rating is actually a rounded up 4.5 stars. There were a handful of plot threads that were left dangling, which is understandable given that this is the second book in a trilogy, but for me a few of them felt that their lack of resolution felt unnatural and not in keeping with Kit's character. My other issue comes about more because of my friendship with Liz de Jager: at times Kit's voice (and occasionally that of some of the other characters) just seemed far too much like that of the real life author (both spoken and her 'twitter voice'). Liz is a self-confessed and proud geek, and in my opinion there were a few too many references to geek culture inserted into the dialogue of Kit and some of the other characters, and at times these jarred with me as I didn't feel that they were necessary or added to the humour in the dialogue in any great way.

Vowed has a little something for everyone - fantasy, action, mystery and plenty of thrills. I just hope that when Judged, the concluding part of the trilogy, is released in November someone will point me back at this review so that I don't leave it unread for quite as long. Looking at my middle grade heavy TBR pile it might be one of the few YA books I read in 2015.

Review: Our Lady of the Streets by Tom Pollock

Ever since Beth Bradley found her way into a hidden London, the presence of its ruthless goddess, Mater Viae, has lurked in the background. Now Mater Viae has returned with deadly consequences.

Streets are wracked by convulsions as muscles of wire and pipe go into spasm, bunching the city into a crippled new geography; pavements flare to thousand-degree fevers, incinerating pedestrians; and towers fall, their foundations decayed.

As the city sickens, so does Beth - her essence now part of this secret London. But when it is revealed that Mater Viae's plans for dominion stretch far beyond the borders of the city, Beth must make a choice: flee, or sacrifice her city in order to save it.

Warning: this book could seriously damage your holiday. At least, it very nearly did that to mine. My wife and I recently spent a week in Scotland. Obviously, therefore, it wasn't a beach holiday with plenty of time to lounge around and do nothing but read. We were going to do stuff. And then I made the mistake of starting to read Our Lady of the Streets, one of my most anticipated books of 2014. And instead of travelling from Fort William to Mallaig on the Jacobite steam train (over the Harry Potter viaduct!), I found myself wanting to stay inside and read. Instead of driving up to Loch Ness, I desperately needed to stay in our apartment to continue reading. The small amount of time at night and in the morning before doing stuff just wasn't enough for this book. It demanded more. It demanded uninterrupted, quality time. And so I did something I rarely ever do - I put it aside and read something else. And then when I got back home from Scotland I picked it up and started reading it from the beginning.

I've waxed lyrical about how great the previous two books in this trilogy are in previous reviews, and I had incredibly high hopes for this one. However, in recent months there have been mutterings amongst some of the UK bloggers about how they are becoming fed up with trilogies because so often the all important third book turns out to be a huge disappointment. This is most definitely not the case with Our Lady of the Streets: it is everything I wanted and hoped for from the final book in The Skyscraper Throne trilogy. In short, it is bloody brilliant!

Please do not read on if you haven't read the previous two books as there are likely to be a few spoilers. Pen and Beth have been reunited following Pen's adventures in London-Under-Glass. However, Pen isn't the only 'person' to have come back to our world from the other side of a mirror: Mater Viae's reflected version has also crossed over and she is bitter and out for vengeance. The story picks ups some time after the close of The Glass Republic and London is already cut off from the rest of the country. Fever streets, Blank Streets, claylings, Sewermanders have all combined under the control of Mater Viae to kill and destroy. And Beth feels almost powerless to help as she herself is sick and possibly dying, along with the city that gives her life and power. 

Fortunately Beth has Pen at her aside, a girl who is almost as unrecognisable as Beth, in comparison to the two friends we were introduced to at the beginning of The City's Son. Yet where the changes in Beth are obvious, for Pen, apart from her scars, it is the inside that has changed the most. Although desperately missing Espel, who is still fighting battles in London-Under-Glass, Pen is stronger and braver than ever before, and she almost edges Beth aside to become the main character of this final piece. Over the course of this book and it's predecessor, Pen has very quickly become one of my all-time favourite heroines from literature.

Our Lady of the Streets is at times a pretty brutal read. Tom Pollock, as he has shown previously, is not afraid to make his characters suffer, and sometimes pay the ultimate price, and so when things seem particularly bleak for Beth and her rapidly diminishing band of survivors, we really do not know who will make it through to the end of the book. Our Lady of the Streets is therefore bound to be an emotional rollercoaster of a read for some, and I am sure that there will be more than a few tears shed by readers at times.

This trilogy is a remarkable achievement for Tom Pollock, especially given that The City's Son was his debut. He writes like someone who has mastered the craft over many, many years and although I am deeply saddened that Beth and Pen's story has now come to an end I can't but helkp feeling a little excited about whatever Tom Pollock may deliver next. He is certainly in my personal top 5 favourite YA writers of the moment, and probably of all time.

Our Lady of the Streets was published in hardback on August 7th, and my thanks go to the fab people at Jo Fletcher Books for sending me a copy.

Review: Banished by Liz de Jager

Kit is proud to be a Blackhart, now she's living with her unorthodox cousins and sharing their strange lives. Especially since their home-schooling includes spells, fighting enemy fae and using ancient weapons.

But it's not until she rescues a rather handsome fae prince, fighting for his life on the edge of Blackhart Manor, that her training really kicks in. With her family away on various missions, Kit must protect Prince Thorn, rely on new friends and use her own unfamiliar magic to stay ahead of Thorn's enemies.

As things go from bad to apocalyptic, fae battle fae in a war that threatens to spill into the human world. Then Kit pits herself against the Elder Gods themselves - it's that or lose everyone she's learnt to love.

Kit is a Blackhart, a family of enforcers and monster hunters who protect the humans from the many supernatural creatures that somehow stumble through the barrier that exists between our world and the magical world of the Fae. In comparison with her extended family though, Kit is relatively new to the whole monster-slaying-is-this-family's-way-of-life kind of thing, and the book opens with her first solo mission. 

Until recently Kit has been living with her grandmother, who had taken away from the Blackharts at a young age and kept their existence and work secret from Kit. The learning curve Kit has faced since her grandmother passed away is a steep one. The Blackharts do not work in complete secrecy. The government is fully aware of their work, and as such they are treated almost as a department of the secret service, with special dispensation for all kinds of otherwise illicit activities (like carrying a sword, fighting goblin-dog-mutant-things and so on).

Home alone recovering from the exertions of her first solo mission, Kit wakes in the night to find the air full of a static and she is already experienced enough to equate this with potential trouble. Venturing out into the neighbouring forest, beyond the protective boundaries of Blackhart Manor, she discovers a highborn Sidhe Fae male being attacked by a group of redcap goblins. With sword swinging Kit leaps into the fray, and in doing so saves Prince Thorn of the House of Alba from death. Her actions have severe repercussions, as the Manor is soon assailed by magical forces, causing Kit and Thorn to flee for their lives. Their flight takes them to London and beyond, as they face various nasties, make new friends and enemies, and friends who turn out to be enemies. Yes, there's enough cross and double-cross to keep everyone guessing.

First a disclosure: as long time readers will know, Liz de Jager is a good friend of mine, and Liz acted as a kind of mentor for me when I was first started blogging. I've chatted with Liz on countless occasions as she wrote (and then completely rewrote) the book that has become Banished, and I am incredibly proud of her and delighted that Banished will be out in the wild at the end of February. However, all of this means that this is a very difficult review to write as I need to make sure I retain objectivity, and please believe me when I say I am not a sycophant, for the main reason that Liz was string me up and subject me to every kind of pain possible if she thought I was writing a positive review just because I am a friend. Seriously though, I am writing a positive review because I really enjoyed Banished.

Should I continue by saying that I was pleasantly surprised (and more than a little relieved) that I enjoyed this book? Banished is not the kind of thing I normally read, and the world of the Fae holds little interest for me. My relative inexperience with this kind of urban fantasy is easily demonstrated by the fact that I was more than half way through before I bothered to look up the actual pronunciation of the word Sidhe, even though it probably makes an appearance several times in each chapter. As I read, in my mind I had tried various possible ways of pronouncing it, and sad to say not one of them was correct (not that I'm going to tell you how to pronounce it - either share my pain or go and look it up for yourself). However, this did not affect my enjoyment of the story (too much) as I was pulled in right from the start by the action. And boy, is there action in this book!

Liz de Jager can really write action scenes, and there are a hell of a lot of them in Banished. Think Matthew Reilly's Scarecrow novels, but applied to a kick-ass girl fighting fantasy creatures, rather than a member of the US special forces battling human bad guys, and you'll have a good idea what to expect from this. I know that Liz watches a huge amount of over-the-top action films, full of car chases, explosions and ninja fight sequences and uses these for inspiration as she choreographs her own fight scenes, and somehow she manages to translate that hi-octane, big screen experience into words on pages. 

As far as characters are concerned, Kit is another great female lead, in the tradition of Buffy (of vampire slaying fame) and Max from Dark Angel. She is impulsive, has a minor rebellious streak at times, and kicks ass big time, but also lacks self-confidence, especially when she stops to think about the scale of the work her family has carried out through history. I'll mention Thorn later in this review, but another character that I am sure will become a reader favourite is Aidan. He is the youngest member of a clan of 'werewolves of London' (sorry - couldn't resist), and I found him a much more believable and likable character than that of Thorn. The extended Blackhart family are also great fun, although they do not appear as much as I would have liked, so I am hoping for more from them in the next two books in the trilogy.

Another aspect of the book that I really liked are the short pieces that appear at the beginning of some of the chapters. Some of these are taken from The Blackhart Bestiarum, and give short descriptions of the creatures that Kit encounters. Others are excerpts from official government reports, and tend to pertain more to the Blackhart Family, or various seemingly supernatural phenomena like time slips, magic and so on. The first of these appears at the beginning of the book and lets us no from the off that the Blackharts are rumoured to have descended from the original Hansel and Gretel of Brothers Grim fame.

The book is not perfect though, as there were a couple of aspects that grated with me. First up, the book is written in first person, present tense but there are several short passages which change to third person in order to show the reader events that are taking place in Otherwhere. I personally felt that these didn't quite work, and that a more experienced writer might have been able to work this into her story without the change to third person. I wonder whether this criticism would be more suitably leveled at the editor than the writer though?

Secondly, although the writer has created a host of wonderful supporting characters, I just didn't 'believe' the character of Prince Thorn, the son of the King of Alba and Kit's main lover interest. I think, more than anything, it was his dialogue I didn't find believable as he uses human vernacular  far too readily (and comfortably?) for someone who is high born Fae. I appreciate that mentions are made regarding the time he has spent in Canada and elsewhere as part of his education on the human world, but I would have expected him to be far more aloof instead of down-to-earth.

These minor gripes aside, Banished is a thoroughly entertaining, well-paced, action-packed read that has a natural conclusion to the story within, but also leaves us with a cliffhanger that is part of the wider story arc. Although this one book will not convert me to being an avid reader of all things Fae, I will definitely be singing up to read the next book, Vowed, due out in November 2014. Banished, meanwhile, is scheduled to be published at the end of this month, and has possibly one of the most striking covers you are likely to see in a YA book this year. Come back at the beginning of March when Liz will be stopping off at The Book Zone has part of her blog tour, when she intends to tell us about her favourite action films (you really won't want to miss this one).

Review: The Glass Republic by Tom Pollock (The Skyscraper Throne Book 2)

Pen's life is all about secrets: the secret of the city's spirits, deities and monsters her best friend Beth discovered, living just beyond the notice of modern Londoners; the secret of how she got the intricate scars that disfigure her so cruelly - and the most closely guarded secret of all: Parva, her mirror-sister, forged from her reflections in a school bathroom mirror. Pen's reflected twin is the only girl who really understands her.

Then Parva is abducted and Pen makes a terrible bargain for the means to track her down. In London-Under-Glass, looks are currency, and Pen's scars make her a rare and valuable commodity. But some in the reflected city will do anything to keep Pen from the secret of what happened to the sister who shared her face.

*** Warning: this review will probably contain spoilers for The City's Son, the first book in Tom Pollock's The Skyscraper Throne trilogy ***

Parva Khan (aka Pen) did not have a particularly happy time in The City's Son. Being bound in 'living' barbed wire is never going to be a particularly pleasant experience for anyone, but for a teen girl who is now heavily scarred, both physically and psychologically, it is pretty much social suicide. Yes, she can keep the playground hounds at bay for a while, with wild and imaginative lies about where she was and how her face became damaged, but there will always be a couple of her peers who are not satisfied with her stories, and unfortunately for Pen these ones are the leaders of the pack. 

With her best friend Beth forever changed by magic of Johnny Naphtha and the Chemical Synod, Pen's only escape from the trials of school is the girls' bathroom in a disused part of school. There she spends hours in front of the mirror, not crying over her disfigurement, but conversing with her reflection. Naturally, this being a Tom Pollock book this is no mere mirror-image of Pen, she is instead talking with her mirror-sister in London-Under Glass, known as Parva throughout the story to differentiate her from Pen and avoid confusion. 

However, when Parva is suddenly no longer there on the other side of the mirror, and a pool of blood on the bathroom floor suggesting foul play, Pen decides the only course of action is to somehow find a way into London-Under-Glass. Pen soon discovers that this place, although a reflection of London, is very, very different. It's a place where Pen's imperfect face is celebrated, with young people queuing to have similar scarring added to their own faces. It is a city where corruption and elitism reign supreme and Pen soon finds herself not only trying to track down Parva, assuming she is still alive, but also battling against the twisted society she finds there.

I loved The City's Son and named it my Book of the Year for 2012. I waxed lyrical about it in my review last year and have been recommending it to as many people as possible. If I now told you that The Glass Republic is even better than its predecessor then you might begin to understand why I have been finding it very difficult to write a review for it. I've started this review countless times since I read the book back in August, but every time I find myself struggling to find the words to do it justice. Tom Pollock is such a gifted writer that any words I put down about his work seem amateurish and clunky and books like this really highlight my shortfalls as a reviewer.

As I was reading the book I had one phrase running around my mind, a phrase that I was definitely going to use in my review. However, someone beat me to it. Back in August I posted an extract from The Glass Republic on this blog, and in the comments section someone going by the name of Pocket Knife Planet wrote the following:

The City's Son was on a par with Gaiman. The Glass republic is BETTER than Gaiman.

A bold statement given the god-like status attributed to Neil Gaiman by his legions of fans around the world, but a statement that I was very much in agreement with. Comparisons with Gaiman are hard to avoid for me, especially given that Neverwhere is one of my all time favourite books. In fact, having since read The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and found it very disappointing and way below par (yes, I know that is a risky thing to say as I have seen a few critical reviewers flamed by upset fans) I am even more comfortable with the initial pronouncement of this being better than NG.

After much agonising about this review, and much deleting and rewriting, I have decided to keep my words to a minimum. This book is best read with as little prior information as possible. I started reading this book without having read any other reviews, thinking I knew what I would be getting. After all, The City's Son was so unique that surely this would be more of the same (i.e. stunning prose, mind-blowing imaginative writing, great characters, etc). I soon discovered that I was only part right in this assumption - The Glass Republic is all of this but even more. It is a truly beautiful read, and calling it urban fantasy almost seems to do it a disservice as it is head and shoulders above all YA (and most adult) urban fantasy that I have ever read. It almost demands a genre title of its very own.

Beth was a great character in The City's Son, and Pen was very much in the background, but although this is a sequel to TCS, it is very much Pen's story. Beth does make an occasional appearance, as do a host of characters & 'entities' from the previous book, but this story is all about how Pen interacts with them. She is very, very different from Beth, and will probably become the series favourite for many readers.

This review ends with a word of warning: this is the second book in the trilogy and therefore the ending may upset some readers as it not only doesn't tie up a lot of loose ends, it also finishes on something of a jaw-dropping cliffhanger. 

My thanks go to the lovely people at Jo Fletcher Books for sending me a copy to read.

Extract from The Glass Republic by Tom Pollock

The Book Zone Book of the Year 2012 was Tom Pollock's truly amazing The City's Son. Now the sequel, The Glass Republic, has been published by Jo Fletcher Books and having just finished it I can say with all confidence that it is easily as good if not better than its predecessor. I felt more than a little honoured when Tom approached me asking if I would be interested in hosting an excerpt from the book.

My review will follow soon, but to give you a quick idea about the book, this time the story follows Pen as she tries to come to terms with what happened to her in The City's Son, and as a result does an Alice and travels to London-Under-Glass. This excerpt takes place some time after she has arrived in this alternate and bizarre London. You can read it below or download a pdf from here. Enjoy!

Review: The Claws of Evil (The Battles of Ben Kingdom) by Andrew Beasley

Welcome to Victorian London; the home of the Artful Dodger, Sherlock Holmes...and Ben Kingdom, cocky street urchin - and the saviour of mankind. Unknown to mere mortals, an ancient battle is being waged across the city. Below the streets lurk the Legion, an evil gang of miscreants and criminals in league with the monstrous Feathered Men - determined to unleash Hell on the streets of London. Above the city's rooftops soar the Watchers, a ragtag band of orphans, mystics and spies, dedicated to protecting the vulnerable and guarding London against evil. Only Ben can put an end to this war - the only problem is, he doesn't know which side to choose.

Just over a week ago Andrew Beasley visited The Book Zone to tell us about his new series, The Battles of Ben Kingdom, as part of my 'Coming Up In 2013' feature. Thanks to the lovely people at Usborne, I had already been very fortunate to read the book by the time Andrew sent his piece through, and although the book isn't due to be published until 1st March, Usborne said they were more than happy for reviews to start being posted early. Rather fortunate for me, as I really want to shout about how much I enjoyed this book!

Long time readers of The Book Zone will know that as far as historical fiction is concerned I have a penchant for the Tudor, Restoration and Victorian eras. You will also know that I totally love urban fantasy stories set in London. And it should go without saying that I am a sucker for well-written Middle Grade adventure stories. As I read the publisher's blurb for The Claws of Evil, I already knew that it was ticking most of my 'must read' boxes, and I was not to be disappointed in the slightest.

A lot of urban fantasy stories set in our capital city seem to revolve around ancient battles, and The Claws of Evil is no different. Below the grimy, cobbled streets of Victorian London dwell the Legion, the villains of the piece. The book opens with a member of the Legion's Council of Seven confidently proclaiming that "London will soon be ours", and it would appear that each of the Council's members has a different plan for the city, now that the final piece of their greatest weapon could soon be in their grasp.

Living above the city, constantly on the move across the rooftops, never sleeping in the same place two nights in a row, live the Watchers. They are the light that fights against the Legion's dark, and have been London's protectors for time immemorial. They are constantly vigilant as they perch on the precarious, sloping roofs, equipped with skyboots designed to give them precious grip as they race across the rooftops. The Watchers also believe in an ancient prophecy that foretells of one who will some day defeat the Legion, although that same prophecy also makes mention of the cost that this person may have to pay.

Enter our protagonist, Ben Kingdom. Like me, you will already be guessing that he is the One, the hero of the Ancient Prophecy of the Watchers. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't, only time will tell. But he is a fantastic hero for this book - think the Artful Dodger, but with a moral compass. Ben only gets into trouble with the Law because he is a mischievous scallywag, and there is certainly never anything malicious about his actions. He lives in near-poverty conditions in the attic of a boarding house with his father and brother, and for reasons that become clear as the story progresses, he feels very little love from either of them. He is adventurous but naive, cocky and confident on the outside, but feeling unloved and lacking in self-belief on the inside. He is terrified of the so-called Weeping Man, a mysterious figure who is reported to be abducting the unwanted East End street kids, but digs deep to find extreme courage when he needs to. He is a character with which many 9+ readers will be able to identify.

As well as a great main character, in The Claws of Evil Andrew Beasley has created a host of colourful and exciting secondary characters, whether they be good or evil (or somewhere in between), human or mythological. Lucy Lambert, the scarfaced and fearless Watcher; Jago Moon, the blind man who sells Ben his much cherished Penny Dreadfuls; Professor James 'Claw' Carter, a man who thinks it is his destiny to rule the city, and is willing to work behind the backs of the Council to achieve his diabolical dream; Ruby Johnson, legionnaire and street thief, but could she be starting to see through the lies and depravity of her leaders? And there there is the Weeping Man himself, and opposites, the Feathered Men. Between them they add a soupçon of horror to the proceedings, that add to the sense of risk and adventure that encompass Ben as he is drawn into the ancient battle.

One of the stand out elements of the plot for me was Ben's confusion as to which side is good and which is evil. As I mentioned before, he is naive and quick to believe what he is told, especially if the teller is female and has a pretty face. His confusion is added to by the fact that some of the lead players in this ancient battle are people he has know for some years; people he has conversed with and trusted, leaving him with the ultimate dilemma - who should he trust? As such, readers will almost find themselves shouting "No, don't trust him, trust her", or vice versa. It is a story about choices, and how making the wrong one could lead to disaster for all.

I was lucky to be sent a proof copy of The Battles of Ben Kingdom: The Claws of Evil, but I have a feeling that I may also be going out and buying a finished copy when it is published, as I feel that it will be a rather attractive volume, with Usborne promising a decorative inside cover and and a customised hand-drawn map of London. 1st March isn't a huge amount of time to wait, and in the meantime you can read the book's prologue at http://www.usborne.com/readbenkingdom

The City's Son by Tom Pollock - Extract #1

In a handful of days (2nd August to be precise), Tom Pollock's brilliant début, The City's Son, will be officially released. The City's Son is one of my favourite books of the year so far and so I was flattered when Tom asked if I would be interested in hosting one of four extracts from the book on the run-up to its publication date. I have been blessed with the brilliant opening chapter, the very extract that pulled me into the book. The three further extracts can be read as follows:


Tuesday 31st July - My Favourite Books
Wednesday 1st August - Fantasy Faction
Thursday 2nd August - Pornokitsch


Enjoy!

You can also access the extract by clicking here.

Review: The London Stone by Sarah Silverwood (Book Three of The Nowhere Chronicles)

The prophecy has come to pass.

The London Stone has been stolen and the Dark King rules the Nowhere. Only Mona and the new Seer dare to stand against him, leading an underground rebellion in the frozen wasteland... but what chance do they have, against both the Army of the Mad and Arnold Mather's soldiers?

There is still hope: if they can recruit a banished race to their cause, maybe Fin and his friends can force a final battle against the Dark King. But that aid will be hard-won, through an almost impossible quest, and even then there are no guarantees.

It will come down to three friends, standing together against all odds. And fulfilling their destinies, whatever the cost...

I loved Sarah Silverwood's The Double-Edged Sword, the first book in her The Nowhere Chronicles trilogy, and it was one of my favourite books of 2010. Its sequel, The Traitor's Gate, was just as enjoyable a read, but when I came to try to review it I found it very difficult to a) say anything that would not spoil the story and b) say anything that didn't just sound like a rehash of my review of the first book. Middle books in trilogies are something I often find difficult to review, as they invariably end on a cliffhanger, with the story far from finished, and The Traitor's Gate was no exception to this. In fact, it left us with multiple cliffhangers, a number of key characters looking as if they were about to shuffle off this mortal coil and more unanswered questions that week's worth of Newsnight politician interviews.

And so I have been waiting impatiently for the final instalment in this thrilling fantasy trilogy, and having finished the book last night I am happy to report that it was well worth the wait. Unfortunately, it is also no easier to review than the previous book, although not because of an unsatisfactory end to the story (far be it - the author finishes her tale brilliantly, although she doesn't pull any punches in doing so and it is certainly not the and-they-all-lived-happily-ever-after that some people might prefer). No, it is difficult to review in detail as so much happens in these 300 pages, and to go into detailed explanations would spoil not only this book but also the two that preceded it (just in case you have not yet read them).

I can tell you that before things improve for Fin and those of his friends that remain, things go from bad to much, much worse. Justin Arnold-Mather was nasty enough before he got his hands on some magic, but once he does the power corrupts him completely, and he becomes a vicious dictator who doesn't think twice about killing any citizen of The Nowhere who dares speak out against him. At the end of the second book we saw Fin and Alex Currie-Clarke heading back to the Somewhere, on a mission to track down the traitor in their midst. Unfortunately, what takes place in the Nowhere in their absence is the stuff of which nightmares are made. 

In order to defeat Arnold-Mather, Fin will have to first risk his life by crossing West Minster Bridge and into The South, and then face even greater dangers in the Middle of Nothing as he journeys to beg the Magi to help him save. not only the Nowhere, but all the other worlds as well. Meanwhile, Mona, a new Seer and a small handful of Knights are left behind to continue the fight against the Dark King and his followers. Will Fin's journey be worthwhile? Or is he too late to prevent the destruction of the Nowhere and everyone he loves with it?

I have already mentioned that readers should not expect a happy ending for every character, but that is not to say that there are not many moments in this story that will have readers buzzing or even shouting with excitement. One such scene sent a tingle up my spine and I was hit my a wave of joy, and I know that many other readers who have come to love the band of aged Knights will experience something similar when they come to that part of the story.

If you love well-written, intelligent fantasy then you really should get your hands on this trilogy. It is one of those series that is probably even more rewarding when read back-to-back as the story is so rich in detail it took me a little while to pick up where things left off when I read both the second and third books, Fortunately, the author very helpfully includes a 'The story so far' piece to help remind us of the preceding events.

The London Stone is due to be published on 12th July and my thanks go to the nice people at Orion Indigo for sending me a copy to review. Its author, Sarah Silverwood, is better known as Sarah Pinborough, author of a number of adult books, and I hope she return to writing for young adults again sometime in the future.

Review: The City's Son by Tom Pollock

Expelled from school, betrayed by her best friend and virtually ignored by her dad, who’s never recovered from the death of her mum, Beth Bradley retreats to the sanctuary of the streets, looking for a new home. What she finds is Filius Viae, the ragged and cocky crown prince of London, who opens her eyes to the place she’s never truly seen.

But the hidden London is on the brink of destruction. Reach, the King of the Cranes, is a malign god of demolition, and he wants Filius dead. In the absence of the Lady of the Streets, Filius’ goddess mother, Beth rouses Filius to raise an alleyway army, to reclaim London’s skyscraper throne for the mother he’s never known. Beth has almost forgotten her old life – until her best friend and her father come searching for her, and she must choose between the streets and the life she left behind.

Every now and again a book comes along, usually out of the blue, and floors me with its brilliance. It doesn’t happen enough, but when it does the book in question will take over my waking and sleeping thoughts completely. The City’s Son by Tom Pollock is one such book, and whilst it is not necessarily going to be perfect for everyone, it was perfect for me.

Long time readers will know that I am a huge fan of urban fantasy set in London, Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere is one of my all time favourite books, and in recent years I have loved the likes of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London and Moon Over Soho, Charlie Fletcher’s Stoneheart series and the first two volumes in Sarah Silverwood’s The Nowhere Chronicles trilogy. The London-set urban fantasy bar has been set very high by these authors, but with The City’s Son I feel that Tom Pollock set a very strong challenge.

The City’s Son is what China Mieville’s Kraken should have been, instead of the disappointing, and dare I say it self-indulgent, mess of ideas that it was. I bought Kraken with my hard-earned pennies and felt completely robbed. In contrast, I received a free proof copy of The City’s Son from publisher Jo Fletcher Books, but I will be front of the queue to buy the hardcover when it is published in August. Whilst I am at it I may as well compare it to Kate Griffin’s Matthew Swift books as well, and no doubt upset even more fan boys when I say that in my mind it is far more accessible and a lot cleverer than Griffin’s work. “But The City’s Son is YA and Kate Griffin’s books are for the adult market” I hear them shout. I am fully aware of this, but The City’s Son is so well written, with a lyricism that is so rarely seen in a YA story, that it wasn’t until I had finished it and seen the cover revealed over at Fantasy Faction that I realised for certain that it was a YA book.

The City’s Son is an urban fantasy story that I believe has true cross-over appeal, and will be thoroughly enjoyed by both the teen and adult markets. Main characters Beth and Filius are teenagers, and yet the prose is of a quality more often found in adult stories (hence my initial confusion as it is not often you see teen characters in an adult novel). At the beginning Beth is expelled from school for a particularly vindictive piece of graffiti that she creates on the school playground, aimed at a particularly nasty teacher. Beth is a gifted artist, and stunning images created with her media of choice, spray paint, can be found all around Hackney. With a handful of uninterrupted minutes and a bag of spray cans Beth is able to bring the concrete and brick walls around her seemingly to life, but what she does not realise that the city she lives in is as alive as she is.

Beth’s life is less than happy. Her mother died suddenly three years earlier, and from that moment Beth’s father pretty much gave up on life and any kind of relationship building with his equally distraught daughter. Following her exclusion (which happens because of what Beth thinks is a betrayal by her closest and possibly only friend) from school Beth takes off to one of her usual hangouts, a disused railway tunnel, and it is here that her adventures begin. Beth finds herself literally caught in the headlights of a train, and as she tries to make sense of how a train could possibly be running on her disused tracks she realises that it was actually more of a train-like thing. Despite her fears she enters what she later discovers is a Railwraith, and in doing so sets herself on a journey that very quickly has her meeting Filius Viae, the city’s son of the book’s title.

Filius is the son of the Lady of the Streets, the long-absent goddess of the City of London, and the true hero of this story. Filius can run faster than any normal human, can ‘skate’ along electric cables, has amazing powers of self-healing and needs to food as he gets his energy from the materials of the city itself. His friends include people made from glass and electric light who live in street lamps, humans permanently cursed to live their lives within stone as statues, and most incredibly, Gutterglass, an entity made of pieces of garbage who can break up his/her body at will, and have it rebuilt miles away with the aid of the friendly neighbourhood worms and insects. All are embroiled in a battle against Reach, the King of Cranes, and supposedly evil god who, in the absence of the Lady of the Streets, has finally decided to assert his authority with a view to taking over the city.

I mentioned at the beginning of this review that The City’s Son has its flaws, although for me the sheer jaw-dropping scope and magic of Tom Pollock’s imagination made these fade into insignificance. Suspension of disbelief is required at times, especially when the various fantastic beings are on the move. There was a little voice whispering away in the back of my mind, questioning how the ‘normal’ inhabitants of London were completely unable to see the wolves made from scaffold, the people made from glass and the trains that don’t need to run on rails. However, as a life-long lover of escapist novels I am well practised at ignoring that voice, and if you can do so as well then the book will be all the more rewarding for it.

Naturally, there will be reviewers who will compare this to Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere – let’s face it, it happens every time an author writes a story where London is treated almost as a character. Naturally, as a Neverwhere fan I also had this in the back of my mind as I was reading The City’s Son, and therefore I couldn’t help but chuckle at one audacious nod Tom Pollock makes to Gaiman’s story. Filius makes a reference to the green witches, to which an awestruck Beth asks if there really are witches in Greenwich. Filius mocks her in reply, asking if she expects there to be a sea of flour and eggs in Battersea.


If you have read Fletcher's Stoneheart trilogy then I would imagine that like me, you look at London's statues in a very different way these days. The City's Son will have a similar effect, but with the city as a whole. I have read many reviews for books in the past where the reviewer writes about the city in which the story is set as being like another character. Exactly the same can be said of the London that is portrayed in The City's Son. It comes across as a living, breathing entity and right from the opening chapter you know that it is so much more than just the setting for the story. London is the story. However, what makes this special from the likes of Stoneheart, is that Tom Pollock isn't writing about the famous buildings and landmarks, but the very fabric of the city itself. As such, whenever I am in London, I now feel my eyes drawn to the street lights, the graffiti, and the materials that the walls, pavements and roads are constructed from. Tom Pollock has breathed vibrant life into mundane London, the stuff that we take for granted and often miss as we gawk at the historical buildings or eccentric characters, and has made me look at the city in whole new way.

The City’s Son is most definitely not for younger teens. It is at times violent and brutal, and the dialogue contains more than the occasional swear word. As well as his characterisation, I found Tom Pollock’s dialogue to be superbly written, with the profanities only adding another layer of realism to it, an opinion that I know many older teens will share. However, alongside the violence there are also some incredibly poignant moments in the story, several of which literally took my breath away, and there were a couple of key scenes where I even had tears threatening to make an appearance. At no point does Tom Pollock patronise his target teen audience, and the ending to the story is a perfect example of this. It is a take-no-prisoners conclusion to the story that leaves the reader with jaw completely dropped.

I do not know how many books are planned for this Skyscraper Throne series, but if they are anywhere near as good as this then I am more than happy to sign up for the duration. The City’s Son ranks as one of my favourite reads of the year so far (and also one of my favourite book covers), and I can’t wait to read the sequel, The Glass Republic, due to be published in August 2013.


The City's Son is scheduled to be released on 2nd August and my thanks go to the lovely people at Jo Fletcher Books for sending me a copy to read and review.

Review: Whispers Under Ground by Ben Aaronovitch (adult book)

Please click on the link below and head on over to my adult book blog - The Book Zone (For Boys) Big Brother - to read my review of Whispers Under Ground, the third book in Ben Aaronovitch's brilliant fantasy series set in London.

http://bookzonebigbrother.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/review-whispers-under-ground-by-ben.html

Review: Freaks by Kieran Larwood

The Freaks are a band of misfits, trapped in a nightly Victorian sideshow. There's Wolf-girl, Sheba, with her amazing sense of smell; Sister Moon, who can move at the speed of light; and Monkey Boy, ace climber and human stink bomb. But during the day, the Freaks decide to put their extraordinary talents to use. And in a world of child-snatchers, grave robbers and dastardly doctors, they solve the mysteries no one else cares about, including why London's poorest children are being snatched from the banks of the Thames.

Towards the end of last year I received an envelope full of A4 full colour, glossy press cards from the lovely people at Chicken House, and this one leapt out at me for three reasons: the book title, the cover and then the blurb. Chicken House had one their job well - they had me securely hooked, reeled in and left waiting for it to be released. Long time readers of The Book Zone will know I am a big fan of books set in the Victorian era, especially those promising a mystery needing to be solved, and with the added element of the freaks I knew I wanted to read this book well before Kieran Larwood wrote a short piece about it for my Coming Up In 2012 feature.

Freaks is an exciting, fun mystery story, perfect for 10+ readers, and the second book I have read recently that I think would translate brilliantly to the comic book format. The freaks of the books title are like a team of Victorian X-Men, each with his or her own unique gifts, that are sadly viewed as mutations or aberrations of nature by the general public. There is Sheba, the wolf girl, whose skin is covered in fine hair; Monkey Boy, one of the most disgusting characters I have read in a children's book for some time, who has a tail and can climb like an ape; Sister Moon, kick-ass ninja girl; Mama Rat, and her colony of performing rats; and the very large, and superhumanly strong, Gigantus.

Despite the book following the adventures of the team of freaks as they attempt to discover who is abducting the young Mudlarks from the banks of the Thames, this book is very much Sheba's story. We first meet her in Pilchton-on Sea, confined to a cage in a run down, seaside freak show (or what is left of it). Sheba is very much more than a girl covered with hair though - she is intelligent, has taught herself to pick locks and has a sense of smell to rival a bloodhound. 

Other than a spell in a workhouse, Sheba has next to no memory of who she is, where she came from, who her parents were, or if Sheba is even her real name. She is little more than a slave, forced to 'perform' for anyone who was bored enough to pay a penny to view her and the two-headed sheep she shares a shack with, and the future looks bleak and lonely until she is sold to another freak show owner and finds herself heading for London. Although technically still a slave, at least she is no longer alone, as she finds herself in the company of the aforementioned freaks. And it isn't long before the team find themselves up to their necks in mystery - a hunt to find missing children that belong to some of the poorest and most destitute families living in London. A mystery that will have them fighting for their lives against a gang of rather nasty villains (Kieran Larwood does very bad villains).

Freaks is pretty much everything a 10 year old reader could ask for in a story. First up, it is funny, exciting and nail-biting in equal measures, with a plot that races along without being overfilled with action scenes. The characters are wonderfully realised, and I hope there will be a sequel so that we can find out even more about the various 'freaks'. Kieran Larwood also brings Victorian to life in a way that will have young readers finding it easy to imagine the sights, sounds and smells of the city as it was back then.

My thanks go to the good people at Chicken House for sending me a copy to review.

Review: Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch

I was my dad's vinyl-wallah: I changed his records while he lounged around drinking tea, and that's how I know my Argo from my Tempo. And it's why, when Dr Walid called me to the morgue to listen to a corpse, I recognised the tune it was playing. Something violently supernatural had happened to the victim, strong enough to leave its imprint like a wax cylinder recording. Cyrus Wilkinson, part-time jazz saxophonist and full-time accountant, had apparently dropped dead of a heart attack just after finishing a gig in a Soho jazz club. He wasn't the first. No one was going to let me exhume corpses to see if they were playing my tune, so it was back to old-fashioned legwork, starting in Soho, the heart of the scene. I didn't trust the lovely Simone, Cyrus' ex-lover, professional jazz kitten and as inviting as a Rubens' portrait, but I needed her help: there were monsters stalking Soho, creatures feeding off that special gift that separates the great musician from someone who can raise a decent tune. What they take is beauty. What they leave behind is sickness, failure and broken lives. And as I hunted them, my investigation got tangled up in another story: a brilliant trumpet player, Richard 'Lord' Grant - my father - who managed to destroy his own career, twice. That's the thing about policing: most of the time you're doing it to maintain public order. Occasionally you're doing it for justice. And maybe once in a career, you're doing it for revenge.

My To Be Read pile is so tall at the moment that it is not often I make time to read a book written for adults these days, although this is a state of affairs that I am working hard to remedy. However, when Moon Over Soho arrived, sent by the ever generous Jon Weir at Gollancz, it was as if that TBR pile no longer existed, and I dropped everything to read it. I loved Rivers of London, the first book in Ben Aaronovitch's urban fantasy trilogy (please, please let this become a series of more than three books), when I read it back in January and I have been waiting eagerly for this sequel ever since, just as I am now piing to read book three, Whispers Under Ground, due to be published in November. Ben Aaronovitch and Gollancz really know how to spoil their readers!

With three books scheduled for publishing in the same year, a small part of me was concerned as to whether the author would be able to maintain the quality he had so skilfully delivered in Rivers of London. I had absolutely nothing to fear at all - Moon Over Soho is easily as good as its predecessor, but with added jazz. I can't claim to be any kind of jazz officiando, but my love of music is second only to my love of books, and I find jazz to be one of the most magical of genres. For me it therefore made the perfect accompaniment to the magic that permeates through London in this story.

The plot of Rivers of London picks up not long after the close of the first book in the series. Peter Grant magical abilities are slowly improving, thanks to the hours of practice he his forced to do by his superior, Inspector Nightingale, whist the latter is forced to take things easy following the injuries he sustained in their previous case. PC Lesley May is also currently on long-term leave, living with her parents in Brightlingsea, as she begins to recover and come to terms with the disfigurement she suffered in that same book. Without his mentor and his closest colleague around to keep an eye on him it was only going to be a matter of time before Peter found himself in some kind of trouble, and before too long he finds himself up to his neck in it.... racing a stolen ambulance through London at night; getting romantically involved with a potential witness; to name but a couple of incidents that would so many young officers booted off the force.

Rivers of London was quite heavy on the details of police procedure, an element that I know some readers felt got in the way of the story, although I found it a really interesting aspect of the story. Moon Over Soho is far more story driven, with the nitty gritty of police work taking more of a back seat, although the author does instead treat us to a plethora of facts about jazz music (no bad thing in my mind) as Peter is drawn into a case where he deduces that someone is killing off the city's jazz musicians by draining the life out of them, a killer he christens the "jazz vampire".

Moon Over Soho is a truly fun read, although it is somewhat darker than its predecessor, and it is also very much an adult book. There are are number of sexual scenes in the story that make it unsuitable for younger teens, and there is also a handful of particularly gory moments. However, older teens who love fantasy and are already moving onto adult books will love it.

Review: Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch (aka Midnight Riot in USA)

My name is Peter Grant and until January I was just probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police Service (as the Filth to everybody else). My only concerns in life were how to avoid a transfer to the Case Progression Unit - we do paperwork so real coppers don't have to - and finding a way to climb into the panties of the outrageously perky WPC Leslie May. Then one night, in pursuance of a murder inquiry, I tried to take a witness statement from someone who was dead but disturbingly voluable, and that brought me to the attention of Inspector Nightingale, the last wizard in England. 

Now I'm a Detective Constable and a trainee wizard, the first apprentice in fifty years, and my world has become somewhat more complicated: nests of vampires in Purley, negotiating a truce between the warring god and goddess of the Thames, and digging up graves in Covent Garden . . . and there's something festering at the heart of the city I love, a malicious vengeful spirit that takes ordinary Londoners and twists them into grotesque mannequins to act out its drama of violence and despair. 

The spirit of riot and rebellion has awakened in the city, and it's falling to me to bring order out of chaos - or die trying.

During 2010 I read less adult novels than in any year before that since about 1985. With the launch of The Book Zone I wanted to devote a lot of time to the books that I wanted to be the primary focus of the blog, and as such I have shelves bulging with adult novel waiting to be read. At the start of 2011 I resolved to read more adult novels, and also feature some of them on The Book Zone wherever I deemed it appropriate. Boys do, after all, grow up and my experience as a teacher suggests that many of them make a very sudden leap from kids and YA fiction, straight onto the adult stuff, and especially where fantasy and science fiction are concerned. Long time readers of The Book Zone will already know that I have a passion for London, and I totally love good urban fantasy set in this city, with Neverwhere ranking high in my list of all time favourites. I have also greatly enjoyed Kate Griffin's Matthew Swift books and one of my favourite reads of last year was Sarah Silverwood's brilliant The Double-Edged Sword (although admittedly that was written for the YA market), both set in London. Now I have a new favourite to add to the list: Rivers of London, the first book in Ben Aaronovitch's new urban fantasy trilogy (please let it become a series).

Before I go any further let me reiterate: this is an adult book, and as such contains themes, language and scenes that may not be deemed appropriate for the younger market. However, confident reader mid-teens who feel they have grown out of the fantasy stories written for their market will have no problem 'jumping' to this, and loving every moment of it. This is the kind of book I would have loved as an intelligent 15 year old (that sounds a little immodest, but my parents kept telling me I was intelligent so I'll run with it).

Rivers of London is your standard, everyday police procedural novel, and an outstanding example of the genre. Well it would be standard and everyday except for one huge thing - magic is very much alive and well; so much so that the government know about it, the police know about it, and there is even a Chief Inspector who is also a wizard. OK, so he is the only remaining wizard living in the UK, but that just means his role is even more important. Of course, probationary constable Peter Grant is not aware of any of this until very early one Tuesday morning when he is left as the lone guard at the scene of a murder, and a shift looking character calls him over claiming: "I saw the whole thing, squire". Out comes PC Grant's notebook, questions are asked and minutes later Peter finds that this witness is certainly not your average passer-by as he states the reason he cannot accompany Peter to the station to give a statement is: "That would be a bit of a problem, seeing as I'm dead". Yup - he's a ghost, and not the last one that PC Grant is going to come across in this story. Notebook still in hand Peter takes all this in his stride, reasoning that "...just because you've gone mad doesn't mean you should stop acting like a policeman", and it is this attitude that soon has him under the protective wing of Chief Inspector Nightingale, working out of The Folly, a five storey Georgian house in Russell Square.

Peter's investigations open up a whole new world to him. It is a world where vampires exist, magic is practised and the various London rivers have a physical human form (he even falls for one of the younger, more attractive members of the 'family'). I hope you are still reading after my mention of the V-word.... you have no need to worry, as they only make a fleeting appearance in the book and they have little in common with the vampires we have been bored rigid by in certain publications in recent years. It is also a world that can be far more deadly than the one he is used to, a world where a person can be possessed by a malevolent spell or spirit, and have their face rearranged to take the form of Mr Punch, only for said face to pretty much fall off as the spell is broken - yes, gore fans, you will be kept entertained as well.

And yet I still haven't mentioned the real strength of this novel, and this is the humour that Ben Aaronovitch puts in his writing. I remember as a teenager I read Ben Elton's Stark, a book that friends had recommended as being the funniest thing ever, but I found ultimately rather disappointing. Since then I tend to steer away from so-called funny books as I rarely ever find them as funny as they have billed to be (and yes, this includes the works of Terry Pratchett, of which I managed to read a grand total of four before I got bored of the humour), and yet there were moments in Rivers of London where I was laughing out loud, and many other scenes where I was reading with some kind of inane grin on my face, as if I too had been possessed by that very same Mr Punch spell. And by the end of the book I wanted even more, and fortunately for me there are two sequels planned for later in 2011. Yes.... two more books this year - Mr A and Gollancz sure know how to make their readers happy.

Last Monday I was entertained by Mr Aaronovitch on Radio 2's Simon Mayo show as I drove home from work. When asked whether his story had to be set in London, his reply was: "I am a Londoner, I've lived here all my life, and I'm what in another place would be called a patriot so yes, for me it has to be London". And this shows throughout the whole book - this is a story written by someone who knows and loves London with a passion. Mr Aaronovitch knows its history and its folklore, and he makes it the sort of work that makes this non-Londoner yearn to pack up everything and move to the capital. It is also the kind of story that, like Neverwhere, will have you thinking twice about every slightly unusual looking character or strange incident that you spot when you are out and about in the capital.

My thanks go to Jon Weir at Gollancz for sending me a copy of Rivers of London, which was released a couple of weeks ago in the UK, and today sees its official publication over in the USA under the title Midnight Riot. According to Amazon the sequel, Moon Over Soho, will be released in April and the third book, Whispers Under Ground, in November. Should we now be christening 2011 the Year of the Aaronovitch?