Ben Aaronovitch

This book was enchanting! It's a mix of police thriller and supernatural/urban fantasy. I think it might make people who are purists about either genre cranky, but for me the blend was perfect. It's about a young London constable who gets mixed up in a series of grisly murders that are actually done by magic. A lot of different plot threads are introduced that may be explained in the next book in the series, three books from now, or never. That kind of meandering quality made it more interesting and harder to figure out what would happen next. Warning: magical violence and bad things happen to likeable characters in this book.

What didn't I like? The misguided, half-hearted attempt to Americanize the American paperback edition I read. It's just weird to read about British people talking about "soccer." And the police computer system is called HOLMES, which stands for Home Office Large Major Inquiry System. Err, copyeditors, that would be HOLMIS. You can't just search and replace like that.

The cover? Standard depiction of main character who is a person of color as a silhouette, which I think is dumb. I like the lettering of the title a lot, though, and it's raised and textured for hours of stimming fun running my thumb back and forth across it as I read.… (more)