Moon Over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch

It isn’t often that the second book in a series I like is even better than the first, but Ben Aaronovitch has managed to build on the cleverness of Midnight Riot to add pathos and depth to his magical universe with Moon Over Soho. Whereas the first book felt a little shaky in its grasp of “magic,” the writing here feels much more sure-footed. In the hands of another author, the amount of detail regarding police practices would have also felt intrusive if not downright tiresome, but here they add gravitas to our hero’s wit and his surroundings’ fancy. And I love how this universe keeps expanding in a way that feels organic and, at no point, convenient (tho I forget from the first book, has Dr Walid always been able to sense vestigia?) I also found, unusually for me, that I was not irritated by the fact that only half the mystery presented in the book is solved by the end of it. I would likely have been annoyed had this happened in the first book: I want a series to earn my loyalty with a perfectly packaged standalone before buying into a multi-threaded narrative that carries over the course of several novels. And the Rivers Of London has definitely done that! Off to binge-read Book 3 before knuckling down to the other books that leapt off the library’s hold list for me!