Whispers Underground and Broken Homes

Being books 3 and 4 in the Rivers of London/Peter Grant series by Ben Aaronovitch.
I really love the world that Ben Aaronovitch has created, and the way it is totally grounded in police procedure - and the way he can get round any tiresome police procedure by having the Folly as a semi-independent body which can make up the rules here and there. After all, it's a police department consisting of two and a half members at the moment, Lesley being officially still on sick leave after the events of Rivers of London (plus spooky servant and dog, of course). My Young Man is a PCSO, and I spent four years working for the Met as a Clerical Officer (as it was then, in the mists of time before computers), and all the police stuff really rings true.
So Whispers Underground takes us to the Underground system and the sewers, via the murder of an American student - which also brings in the FBI, as said student is the son of a senator. There's a lot of history about the building of the tunnels, and Ben Aaronovitch also takes a look at the world of modern art on the way, as well as continuing the plot lines concerning the Faceless Man (who almost killed Peter in Moon over Soho) and the river spirits of the city.
In Broken Homes, we go up into the high-rise flats of Skygarden, one of the post-war rebuilding projects that didn't quite create the brave new world the architects were aiming for.
I grew up not far from some much smaller scale high rise flats, at Kersal in Salford, which were early enough to still have coal fires, and badly designed enough that the only way to get the coal to the flats was in the passenger lift. They were mostly blown up in the 1980s - one block, now privately owned, still survives - and there is a website somewhere that has collected the memories of people who lived there, who were mostly really, really pleased to get out of the Victorian terraces of Salford to somewhere they could see rabbits from their balconies at the beginning.
In Ben Aaronovitch's version of reality, of course the Skygarden estate was built with magical principles in mind, and some of what he describes turns out to be real architectural ideas.
Along with the exciting action and interesting characters, he packs a lot of information into the books about London history and all sorts of other things, like the architecture here. Peter Grant has quite a few things to say about the design deficiencies of the flats, and one of the other characters shows him what the original vision for the building had been - literally a garden in the sky.
Along the way, they also encounter magical markets and demon traps, and start to discover more about the international magical scene.
I'm really looking forward to the next book coming out - and not just because Broken Homes ended on such a cliff hanger!

Following in the Footsteps of PC Peter Grant

While I was in London, we did quite a bit more than attending the Super Comic Con. One thing I was determined to do was to visit Patisserie Valerie in Old Compton Street. I've been there before, but this time, I wanted to sit at the very table that is mentioned in Moon over Soho, the second book in Ben Aaronovitch's series about magical policeman Peter Grant.
In fact, I managed to follow quite a Peter Grant trail over the weekend!
I came into London by National Express coach, which goes through Holland Park - a rather lovely, leafy area, with beautiful houses - and the scene of some gruesome murders in the first book, Rivers of London.
Later, my Young Man took me to Moss Bros to pick up the suit he'd hired for his Penguin costume. This is not mentioned in the books - but wow! What a wonderful shop!

While the Young Man was trying on the tail coat, I asked one of the assistants if he knew about the history of the building, and he said it had been a fire station! That was obviously in the days when public services were a cause for celebration rather than cuts!

We went on from there to Covent Garden, which is where the first book opens - just here, in fact -

Here's St Paul's church, and I was amused to see the Punch and Judy Tavern opposite.
When we came back that way to drop off the tail coat after the weekend, I heard opera playing from one of the sunken courtyards. "That's live," the Young Man said, and led me through to the other end of the row of shops to look down at a young lady singing. She wasn't using a microphone, and we'd been able to hear her right at the other end of the building.

Later on Monday afternoon, after we'd staggered out of the Viking Exhibition at the British Museum, our heads bursting with all the new knowledge, we headed to Old Compton Street for cake and coffee at Patisserie Valerie. On the way, we passed the Spice of Life - one of the jazz clubs mentioned in Moon over Soho. Then we sat at the very table used by Simone and Peter Grant in the book and enjoyed the double chocolate gateaux (me) and the Black Forest gateaux (the Young Man). It was a wonderful (and very sweet!) end to a wonderful day.