Reading: The October Man
Jun. 22nd, 2019 04:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
white_hartBen Aaronovitch's new novella, The October Man, is set in the same universe as his Rivers of London books but doesn't feature any of the characters from the previous books (although there are references to Peter Grant and Nightingale). Instead, it's narrated by Tobias Winter, who is essentially Peter's counterpart in the German police force, as he and his liaison with the local police, Vanessa Sommer, investigate the mysterious death of a man whose body was found near Trier in the Mosel Valley covered in a fungus which normally only affects grapes.
I enjoyed this; it was fun to see how magical policing works in a different country, and the novella also fills in some of the backstory about the role of magic in World War 2 from a different perspective to Nightingale's. The plot is pacy and was twisty enough to keep me guessing. I did think that possibly Tobias's voice sounded a little bit too much like Peter's; although he doesn't have Peter's geekiness, the snarky humour and the way of mixing plot details with magical exposition was similar enough that I did sometimes find it a little difficult to remember that this was a completely different point of view character. However, this was a fairly minor niggle and in general I liked it a lot and hope that Aaronovitch writes more about Tobias and Vanessa sometime.
I enjoyed this; it was fun to see how magical policing works in a different country, and the novella also fills in some of the backstory about the role of magic in World War 2 from a different perspective to Nightingale's. The plot is pacy and was twisty enough to keep me guessing. I did think that possibly Tobias's voice sounded a little bit too much like Peter's; although he doesn't have Peter's geekiness, the snarky humour and the way of mixing plot details with magical exposition was similar enough that I did sometimes find it a little difficult to remember that this was a completely different point of view character. However, this was a fairly minor niggle and in general I liked it a lot and hope that Aaronovitch writes more about Tobias and Vanessa sometime.
