Book Beginnings & The Friday 56: Whispers Under Ground by Ben Aaronovitch

Published on by Margaret

Every Friday Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Gillion at Rose City Reader where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading. You can also share from a book you want to highlight just because it caught your fancy.

Today I’m featuring one of the books I’m currently reading, Whispers Under Ground by Ben Aaronovitch, the third book in his Rivers of London series, police procedurals of a very different kind – urban fantasy, set in the real world of London, a mix of reality and the supernatural.

My Book Beginning

Back in the summer I’d made the mistake of telling my mother what I did for a living. Not the police bit, which of course she already knew about having been at my graduation from Hendon, but the stuff about me working for the branch of the Met that dealt with the supernatural.

Also every Friday there is The Friday 56, hosted by Freda at Freda’s Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an eBook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Page 56:

I was carrying my magic bowl with both hands and stepping carefully on the frost-slippery cobbles.

Ben Aaronovitch is an English author and screenwriter. He is the author of the Rivers of London series of novels. He worked as a scriptwriter for Doctor Who and Casualty before the inspiration for his own series of books struck him whilst working as a bookseller in Waterstones Covent Garden. His unique novels are the culmination of his experience of writing about the emergency services and the supernatural. 

The series is to be adapted for television, bringing together all nine of the novels, plus the accompanying short stories, novellas and graphic novels, for the screen. The TV adaptation will be co-produced by Pure Fiction Television, See-Saw Films and Aaronovitch’s own production company Unnecessary Logo.

Synopsis:

Peter Grant is learning magic fast. And it’s just as well – he’s already had run-ins with the deadly supernatural children of the Thames and a terrifying killer in Soho. Progression in the Police Force is less easy. Especially when you work in a department of two. A department that doesn’t even officially exist. A department that if you did describe it to most people would get you laughed at. And then there’s his love life. The last person he fell for ended up seriously dead. It wasn’t his fault, but still.

Now something horrible is happening in the labyrinth of tunnels that make up the tube system that honeycombs the ancient foundations of London. And delays on the Northern line is the very least of it. Time to call in the Met’s Economic and Specialist Crime Unit 9, aka ‘The Folly’. Time to call in PC Peter Grant, Britain’s Last Wizard.

What do you think? Would you read it?

19 thoughts on “Book Beginnings & The Friday 56: Whispers Under Ground by Ben Aaronovitch”

    1. Maybe I should have added the next sentences – because they clarify that not only does she approve she is full of maternal pride because she translated supernatural into ‘witch-finder’ and like most West Africans she considers ‘witchfinding a more respectable profession than policeman.’

      Like

Comments are closed.