Rivers of London – Body Work [Graphic Novel] #blackathon, My Kind of Mystery
So I had a long chatty post of my thoughts on this, and they didn’t save, and I don’t know why. ‘Tis weird.
So for now, let me say this. I am really glad that the Wakanda Forever challenge in #blackathon reminded me that I had this graphic novel on my Kindle Fire* yet had never read it.** Because I have now discovered that I actually loved the experience of reading it this way, despite never having been able to get into graphic novels in the past.
Also? This book is a two-fer, and fits in the My Kind of Mystery Challenge I’m doing this year.
So. Rivers of London: Body Work, the graphic novel.
The backlighting, the glow–I even turned off the lights to give more effect to the images.
Peter Grant’s Rivers of London universe*** is filled with diversity. His own mum is from Sierra Leone and is an office building cleaner in London. The goddesses of the various rivers of London are all daughters of Mama Thames, herself from Nigeria. No, that doesn’t make sense and yes, it’s explained and is fun and clever, but I won’t try to go into it here.
Peter is a Constable in the London Metropolitan Police who, in the first book, quite unexpectedly discovers he’s got some magical acuity, and suddenly finds himself the first Apprentice Magician in England in over 60 years, under DCI Nightingale, previously the only Wizard Survivor of a famous magical battle that killed all the other British wizards. He is the quintessential public school aristocrat [which means the opposite in England as it does in the US, meaning, extremely exclusive], posh right down to his silver-topped cane, and now investigating paranormal crimes for the Filth. [What the less savoury folks call the police.]
The mentor/teaching process is fun, for real. Not only are they very different, Nightingale is a classicist and Peter likes to do scientific experiments with magic and blow stuff up. [Well, blowing stuff up isn’t exactly the goal, but…]
It’s fun stuff with touches of horror, twisty plots which usually are quite secondary to my appreciation and enjoyment of the series. I give them all 5 stars simply because each time a new book comes out, I get to return to this wonderful world that has been quite aptly described as “CSI meets Harry Potter.”
If you love London and want to be dragged through, dropped into, swimming through places you never knew existed? This series is for you.
I hope if you click this it will be large enough for you to read. I snapped a pic of the image off my Kindle Fire*.
And the graphic novel is as twisty and possibly more satisfying than the novels [for me, which is quite subjective] because even though twisty, it does have a linear plot without the lovely distractions and bright shinies that fill my dys-brain with wonderful distractions when I’m reading the novels/audiobooks.
* I just noticed that Kindle Fires are on sale today. Maybe longer, no idea when the pricing ends. I just know you can get them as little as $39.95, and I am loving mine so much, I have to make sure you know about what a great deal this is. I think mine is either the $39.95 one or the $59.95 one. Not sure which. I just know it’s yellow!
** [It also fits in the More Than a Color Challenge, but I have others for that one, too. Next review is Black Klansman by Ron Stallworth.]
*** First book in the series for those interested in giving it a read: Rivers of London in the UK and elsewhere, originally called Midnight Riot in the US, because we can’t be trusted with British titles and they have to be changed for us, doncha know. [Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone, I’m glaring at you.]
I love my kindle fires. The bad thing about the inexpensive ones is the small memory. I have one which is maxed out on memory which makes it essentially useless for me. My oldest one is having trouble keeping a charge, so I bought a new one with a lot of memory recently. Make sure to adjust where data goes and what you download to keep a check on memory.