Tales of Terror and Mystery, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. First Rate Publishers, 2016

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a prolific writer, and his Sherlock Holmes stories, while the best known of his work, were only a fraction of what he wrote. This book gives us six tales of terror- mostly supernatural- and seven tales of mystery- all works of humankind.

Some of the mysteries have the feel of a Holmes story- in fact, he is obliquely referred to in two of them- but most don’t. “Terror of the Heights” made me think of Lovecraft, while “The New Catacomb” and “The Brazilian Cat” are both downright Poe-ish in character.

While none of these stories has the liveliness of the Holmes stories, they are well worth reading. Some people have put them down as being ‘pulp’ stories, but I don’t happen to think that’s an insult. 

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Broken Homes, by Ben Aaronovitch. Daw Books, 2013

Constable Peter Grant, his mentor Nightingale, and fellow wizard in training and police officer Lesley May are in search of the rogue wizard the Faceless Man and kept busy with magical training and new cases of supernatural crime. When clues lead them to a run down low income apartment building designed by a famous architect, a long stake out ensues. The building is a bone of contention: developers want to take it down to build new, profitable things but it’s on the list of protected sites. Peter finds that the landscaping is a bit unusual- in the magical sense- and that, for a run down, nearly empty building, a lot of concrete work has been done very recently.

I’m a huge fan of Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series, but this one, book four, disappointed me a little. It started out with a bang, and ended with a huge bang –literally- (including a twist that I had a feeling might be coming) but the middle seemed to drag- there was a long stretch with not a whole lot happening. It’s still great fun, but just not up there with the first three. Peter Grant makes a great narrator, with a lot of dark humor, even in the stretches where there was not a lot of action. I love how characters introduced in previous books reappear rather than just go away because they aren’t part of the main plot this go around. It’s a police procedural with magic, supernatural characters, and a lot of snarkiness. 

Whispers Underground, by Ben Aaronovitch. Ballantine 2012

London Police Constable Peter Grant returns for the third volume of this urban fantasy series with a well connected American murder victim that has a trace of magic attached to him. The complex plot weaves together a born again Christian FBI agent who does not like the idea of magic, some very special pottery, a teenaged girl who is catching on to the whole magic thing all too quickly, an underground world and the larger story arc of the deadly rogue magician- all told in the funny, snarky voice of Grant. This volume gets back to the frantic pace that the first in the series had.

I did find myself getting lost at times because of the large number of characters, unable to remember if this or that person was FBI, London police, or counter terrorism. Thankfully the main characters have had three books to flesh out their parts and there is no forgetting them! Character is one of the things that shines in this series; no one is a caricature and everyone is well drawn. London itself is so thoroughly described, history and all, that the city almost becomes a character in its own right. The other strong suite is the humor; a dry, witty way of describing things and great banter between the main characters. I hope this series goes on for many books! 

 

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Moon Over Soho, by Ben Aaronovitch. Ballantine 2011

In his second outing, young Constable Peter Grant of London is now a magical apprentice and member of the branch of the police that deals with supernatural crimes and events. In this book, jazz musicians are dying off suddenly, with a trace of magic on them- the strains of a jazz song popular in the 1940s. The story brings Grant’s father, a famous jazz musician, into the story. There is also a monster on the loose that is munching genitals- and not in the good way.

This book has a bit slower pace than the first one, which allows for more character development- I enjoyed finding out about Grant’s parents. Grant spends time learning more about magic and having an extremely physical relationship with a mysterious woman. His best friend, hideously injuring at the end of the first book, is learning magic faster than Grant is. While the jazz musician story wraps up at the end of this book, a longer story arc is woven in with it that is obviously going to take place over several volumes.

I didn’t enjoy this funny, violent, magical story quite as much as ‘Rivers of London’ but it’s still a great work of urban fantasy. 

 

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Rivers of London, by Ben Aaronovitch. Orion House, 2011

‘’Rivers of London’ is the first in an urban fantasy series that so far has four books in it, and I look forward to reading those other three. Constable Peter Grant is coming to the end of his probationary period as a new police officer and faced with the prospect of being put on a desk job when a witness to a murder turns out to be a ghost. But that’s not the strangest part; it turns out that the London PD has a special unit for supernatural crimes and goings on. It is staffed by one person, Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale- and, now, by Constable Grant. Peter is our narrator, and he quickly proved to be someone I’d like to spend time with, listening to him tell stories in a pub.

Up to now, Grant has not believed in anything supernatural. Suddenly he is thrown into a world he’s not noticed before; ghosts, learning magic, spirits of the rivers, a housekeeper who isn’t quite human. He accepts it all with amazing easiness, though. I suppose that’s part of living in a huge city; you get used to running into unusual people and things. When it becomes obvious that the supernatural killer the ghost witnessed is a serial killer things get more complicated. To add to learning magic and solving the crime, Peter must act as liaison between Father Thames and Mother Thames, who are feuding.

I loved how the gods and goddesses of the rivers – the genii locorum - are still in place, even with modern London laid over the ancient landscape. To me, that was even more appealing than the vengeance story that started over a hundred years ago. While the characters aren’t terribly deep- there isn’t much fleshing them out- they are likable and I’m hoping to get to know them better in later volumes. The book is funny and exciting. It would make a great series on the BBC. 

The American edition was renamed "Midnight Riot' for some reason. 

 

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The Haunting of Maddy Clare, by Simone St. James. New American Library, 2012

In 1922 London, Sarah Piper is a poor temp worker, barely making ends meet. So when she is offered an assignment that requires going to a country village as assistant to Alistair Gellis, a ghost hunter, she sees no option other than to take it. Gellis seems harmless enough, even though his belief in ghosts makes him foolish in Piper’s eyes. Gellis’s regular assistant has been called away to attend a family illness.

The story they are presented with when they get to Waringstoke is that a servant girl, Maddy Clare, who had turned up years before one night, filthy, beaten and unable to talk and was taken in by the Clare’s, cared for, given their name, and made into a servant for light work, had committed suicide in the barn and was now haunting said barn. Mrs. Clare is frightened of her and wants her spirit gone. Much to Sarah’s shock, the ghost is very real, very angry and very powerful- and she hates men as much in death as she did in life.

What follows is a paranormal detective story, with Sarah, Gellis, and Gellis’s returned assistant, Matthew Ryder, trying to find out who Maddy was and how she had turned up on the Clare’s doorstep in the condition she was in. Someone is trying to discourage them from investigating, and a face from Alistair’s past has turned up in town.

In most ways, I loved this book. I couldn’t put it down. It’s a good mystery, and the mystery is blended with the paranormal well. I really liked Sarah Piper; she is strong and independent without being too modern for the time the story is set in. And while I liked Matthew for the most part, his relationship with Sarah starts out pretty creepily for my taste. The excuse is that Matthew (and Alistair, too) suffer from PTSD from the Great War, but that doesn’t it any more palatable when he enters Sarah’s room and has sex with her without having a word with her about it- and then telling her he won’t be back. Now, the sex *is* consensual, but he has no way of knowing how she feels; he just mounts her. Since he’s portrayed as a good, if damaged, person in the rest of the novel, one assumes (hopes) that he would have stopped if Sarah had said anything. 

 

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