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    Moon Over Soho
    Moon Over Soho
    Moon Over Soho
    Audiobook10 hours

    Moon Over Soho

    Written by Ben Aaronovitch

    Narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Body and soul. The song. That's what London constable and sorcerer's apprentice Peter Grant first notices when he examines the corpse of Cyrus Wilkins, part-time jazz drummer and full-time accountant, who dropped dead of a heart attack while playing a gig at Soho's 606 Club. The notes of the old jazz standard are rising from the body-a sure sign that something about the man's death was not at all natural but instead supernatural.Body and soul-they're also what Peter will risk as he investigates a pattern of similar deaths in and around Soho. With the help of his superior officer, Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, the last registered wizard in England, and the assistance of beautiful jazz aficionado Simone Fitzwilliam, Peter will uncover a deadly magical menace-one that leads right to his own doorstep and to the squandered promise of a young jazz musician: a talented trumpet player named Richard "Lord" Grant-otherwise known as Peter's dear old dad.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateSep 28, 2012
    ISBN9781452680088
    Author

    Ben Aaronovitch

    Born and raised in London, Ben Aaronovitch 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. Ben Aaronovitch’s unique novels are the culmination of his experience of writing about the emergency services and the supernatural.

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    Reviews for Moon Over Soho

    4/5

    1,344 ratings103 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Another dive into the world of magic and mystery through the lens of the London Met's officer Peter Grant and yet another book I devoured in a week. Once again the story was gripping, the characters were varied and interesting and the pacing was spot on.

      If you enjoyed the first book, don't delay in picking this one up too!
    • 4/5
      This series is the best thing in urban fantasy since The Dresden Files. I can't wait to see more of it.
    • 3/5
      A perfectly serviceable sequel of the "more of the same" variety. Keeps the series overarching plot moving while still maintaining its own momentum - a balance that is surprisingly tricky to pull of. Feels a bit more random than the first one, though - that was a procedural mystery with a rather slow pace, while the sequel leaves features more running around and relies more on chance encounters and external forces to move the plot along. Not a deal-breaker, though, just makes it a bit weaker than its predecessor.
    • 4/5
      Good entry in the series. No significant drop off from Rivers of London (at least in my opinion) and actually takes some surprising turns here and there. Sets up a satisfactorily scary big villain for the next few books? (rest of the series, maybe?).Not the place to start with the series (obviously).
    • 3/5
      I found Moon Over Soho more compelling than Rivers of London, somehow. It was a bit unputdownable, which is a quality I've been missing in my books lately, so that's nice. Yeah, Peter's led round by his dick here, too, and fails to think about things because he's too busy having sex with them, and yeah, he's got serious manpain over Leslie, who he also makes do all his menial work, but... The plot moved at a decent pace, and set up some plot threads which will no doubt be ongoing.

      It still reminds me of the Dresden Files, and I'm still not enamoured of the treatment of the female characters, but it didn't irritate me as much as I expected -- I think I'll continue reading this series. (Mind you, I didn't give up on the Dresden Files right away, so there's still time for it to annoy me.)

      I read it more or less all in one go -- in three sessions, in one day -- so that's definitely a bit better than the first book, which took me seven reading sessions over just over a week's time. So if you were only planning to pick up Moon Over Soho if it was better than Rivers of London, showing that bit of improvement, well, it does.
    • 5/5
      Amazing. I love this series and the narrator. Honestly, really good, unique stuff here. Very easy to listen to but not boring and predictable
    • 4/5
      Now that the hit of, “It’s hard to suspend disbelief here,” from the first book is over, Moon Over Soho was just a fun sequel in what is clearly going to be a wide-ranging urban fantasy series. Male readers may squirm a bit (or a lot!) on this one but these books have a nice blend of humor, action and sorrow.
    • 4/5
      Light and fun - one aspect was a bit predictable, but overall a good read.
    • 4/5
      Moon over Soho is a fun and interesting read. I have the distinct disadvantage in reading this that I didn't read the first book first but jumped right in here, but I sitll found this interesting. There was enough back story to fill you in without swamping the book. The world-building is interesting, I loved the idea of the gods of the london rivers and about the intersection between a magical urban fantasy world and the mundane police force. The plot was a little trite, I had it worked out long before the cop did while is never a good thing, and I had no real sense of suspense at the end. This is very much a middle book, there's never any feeling that something big is at stake. That said, for a middle book it's very good. I love how London and London life is woven in to the plot so centraly, you couldn't set this book anywhere else and have it be the same book. The characters are all complex, if a little slow on the uptake, and I love how the main character's entire life is would up in the story, his home, his family, his job etc. Give it depth. So, yeah, it's a fun middle book, has a plot of it's own, even if it's a little obvious, builds on the characters I presume are from the first book and sets up a villain for later books.
    • 3/5
      Pretty much the same review as the first book. Really liking the story but at around 75% the writing becomes garrulous with excruciatingly detailed descriptions that are completely unnecessary. It was almost as if the author was padding, trying to make the book a certain word count or page number. Completely annoying and gets in the way of a good story with entertaining characters. I've grown attached enough to the MC's to want to keep reading so I will suck it up and read the third book, but if the same pattern follows with that one I'm going to have to give up on this series and hope the author finds a good editor some day. Shame really, with some ruthless editing this series could be in the same class as the Dresden Files.
    • 3/5
      Book two in the Rivers of London series. Peter Grant is a trainee wizard in the Metropolitan Police. His boss and best friend are still recovering from their injuries sustained in book one so he's on his own for a lot of it. Jazz musicians keep dying by apparently natural causes, meanwhile an altogether more sinister killer is targeting patrons of the Jazz clubs. A bit too much sex for my liking, and easier to figure out than the first book, but still good. Definitely worth carrying on with the series.
    • 3/5
      A bit mixed on this one: I still enjoyed the humor but there seemed to be less of it in this book. I also felt a bit more lost plot-wise (but less so pop-culture-wise, which was my problem in the first book). I'm sure that confusion wasn't helped when I stopped reading this book to read a whole other book before going back to this one again, but I think a fair part of it was also that there were two mysteries going on and not only did I have a tendency to mix up the victims of the two cases, I have no idea what happened in the second mystery. I think that second one is more of a series-arching mystery since there was a tiny tease of it mentioned in the first book but still. It threw me off.

      Perhaps I am just not smart enough right now to read things with plot. Eh, I'll still read the next book in the series but I'll read something else in the mean time.
    • 3/5
      This is the second book in the series, but it's the fourth one that I have read. While I do love this series, this was my least favorite book so far. The good news is that the narrator of the audio books, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, was even better in this book than he was in the first book, where there were some distracting sounds. He really is a wonderful narrator for these books. The bad news is that I didn't care for the plot which I thought was scattered and I particularly disliked some aspects of the plot. I could easily have done without the lengthy sex scenes and the side plot about the fiend who bites off penises. Also the river gods were mostly absent from this book and I generally didn't find it as witty and amusing as books 1, 3 and 4 of the series. Overall, I was a little disappointed by this one.
    • 3/5
      The scientific approach to magic makes me happy, though Peter's training is less prevalent in this book than in Midnight Riot.

      But what I seriously dislike is Peter sharing details of his investigation with non-involved parties. I disliked him leaning on Lesley for assistance as much as he did in the previous novel, but at least she was a cop. But he also involved Beverly and I was dubious about that. In this installment, he involves Ash (who does a stakeout for him), a group of amateur Jazz magicians (who go out drinking with him at a potential crime scene) and yet another love interest, Simone (who asks to come along on the investigation and be his "plucky sidekick").

      Now, keep in mind that he's met Simone twice before, once as a possible "person of interest" in a murder, once on a random street corner where she flirted with him for a while and they ate desert, and now he's letting her come investigate with him? Oh, and suddenly having lots and lots of sex.

      It seems to me that if you have a character that you've put forth so much effort into making part of an ordinary police force, the characters should at least act like real police and not take off work early during a murder investigation to go answer a booty call from a possible suspect.

      Some measure of professional decorum would be highly appreciated.

      I like the sense of humor, especially the "ethically challenged (not black) musicians" and the scientific approach, but I don't think I can stand another book of Peter not acting like a cop.
    • 5/5
      Another outng for police wizard Peter Grant, this time taking on vampires (sort of) and dark wizardry in the Jazz world in Soho. Cool, funny and a series with plenty of mileage in it. I look forward to seeing where it goes next.
    • 3/5
      I read the first book in this series few years ago and enjoyed it enough to read the second book. I quite liked it, though it wasn't spectacular.

      Jazz musicians are found dead shortly after giving concerts. It turns out that the practice lasts few decades. In the meantime someone is biting off male penises. Since Nightingale is still recovering from the injures from the previous book, Peter has to deal with these cases, mostly alone or with a help of the 'regular' police.

      I think the best thing about this book are the secondary characters, and I don't mean Simone and her sisters or Nightingale. I really liked Stephanopoulos, the lesbian policewoman and Peter's parents. The whole story is quite interesting but it could be better.

      It's hard not to compare this book with the Dresden files and I'm afraid I prefer Harry. Still I will probably read another book in this series one day. I'm rating this one 3.5
    • 5/5
      Peter is kind of carrying the Idiot Ball in this book, but it had a hell of an ending.
    • 5/5
      Peter Grant, Patrol Constable and apprentice Wizard with the Metropolitan Police, is called in by Dr. Walid to listen to a corpse.Cyrus Wilkinson, jazz musician by night and accountant by day, died suddenly, right after a performance, apparently of natural causes. However, in the process of doing the postmortem, Walid hears a song. He recognizes it as jazz, but jazz isn't his thing, and it is, if not Peter's, at least his father's. Richard Grant, nicknamed "Lord" Grant by his fellow musicians, stood on the brink of becoming a jazz legend twice, and managed to destroy his own career both times. Peter has grown up with jazz. He recognizes the song as "Body and Soul," but can't identify the musician. The fact that this remnant of music is clinging to the body, though, means that some really powerful magic was involved in Wilkinson's death. There's a killer out there, using magic, and he has to be caught. That means it's Peter's business, or rather the Folly's, which means--Peter and his boss, Thomas Nightingale.Peter turns to his father to identify the musician playing the song. Then he goes doing normal police legwork into the background and associates of the dead man, and looking for signs of similar unexpected but seemingly natural deaths, specifically among jazz musicians. No one is going to let him dig up corpses to test for vestigia of magic, so--more legwork. He meets Simone, Cyrus Wilkinson's ex-lover, and his band, and is summoned to another death that looks remarkably like Cyrus's. As the band members realize that Peter is "Lord" Grant's son, and the police officer investigating their bandmate's death, they become happy to help with whatever information they can provide. Oh, and they'd like to meet "Lord" Grant, if convenient.But beyond that relatively positive development, there's that other death, followed by yet another, by a different means. A man is found dead sitting on a toilet in a another music club, bled to death after his penis was bitten off in what appears to be a second instance of an attack by a woman with teeth in her vagina. Before long, Peter is hunting a Pale Lady (a death avatar), possible "jazz vampires," sucking the life force out of, for some reason, specifically jazz musicians. Peter also learns some, let's say startling, things about both Thomas Nightingale, and the Folly's housekeeper, Molly. This is also the book where Peter meets Abigail Kamara. A tiny, unimportant detail, in this book.It's an interesting and complex mystery, and we get better acquainted with Peter, his friends and family, and his world.Recommended.I bought this audiobook.
    • 4/5
      Mostly good but a huge instance of transphobia there.
    • 5/5
      Read it again, this time as a splendidly narrated audio book. Love the police procedural aspects, love the sarcastic humor, and it's a good review of Peter Grant's adventures -- how could I forget the Irregulars? And The Jazz Vampires? And the heartbreaking sorrow of Simone.
    • 4/5
      The second book in the Peter Grant series was just as satisfying as the first. I'm really enjoying the series and am looking forward to seeing how some of the dangling threads at the end of this one are tied up in future books.
    • 4/5
      There are two storylines running through Moon Over Soho: one that begins and ends with this book, involving a string of suspicious deaths, all of them jazz musicians. The other centres on a mysterious, faceless, unknown sorcerer running around London killing and conducting his own Dr. Moreau type experiments, and the reader is left hanging as to its resolution, presumably because it will come back up in future books. I knew how the first story line would play out by the time I got to a page that falls somewhere in the range of 40-60 (I won't give the exact page number because I don't want to risk spoilers). This is why my rating is only 3.5 stars. The story is still good, but it's definitely hampered by knowing the ending, and wanting to smack Peter for not figuring out what was right in front of him a lot sooner. To give credit though, I did not foresee how he would try to resolve the situation; I liked it, even though it didn't work out quite the way he's hoped.
    • 5/5
      Well-written and plotted.
    • 4/5
      I am really loving this series. Peter Grant is a great character -- he's flawed, but he tries hard, and sometimes he's damn funny. Definitely recommend this!
    • 4/5
      After finishing the second book, I now understand why some critics call the Rivers of London series a blend of CSI and Harry Potter. Glad I scoured about for the entire series; it's a great winter binge.
    • 3/5
      As with all "second in a series", I enjoyed the first one better. But, I like this world and these characters and I will continue with the series.

    • 4/5
      Good ending
    • 3/5
      Wish I'd jotted down the character list as I went along as I lost the plot a bit in the middle. If I read another one I'll do that to save a lot of flicking back and forward.
    • 5/5
      I've found the best Urban Fantasy novels are also great detective novels, except instead of ballistics, DNA testing, and the other tools of the science detectives trade that Sherlock Holmes & the like bust out, there's magic. The Peter Grant novels succeed at this fantastically. Aaronovitch creates excellent characters and riveting mysteries that really pull you in.
    • 4/5
      Slight incompetent PC and struggling apprentice wizard Peter Grant has been asked to investigate the brutal murder of a journalist in a toilet in the Groucho Club. And there are more deaths too, jazz musicians are collapsing and dying after gigs, supposedly of natural causes, the Peter detects the thaumaturgical signature of magic, meaning that these are not as natural as first thought.

      The detective in charge really does't want Peter on the case, but reluctantly accepts that he needs to be, Peter starts to track the creatures that haunt these Soho clubs, and he realises that a proficient wizard, unknown even to Nightingale may be behind the deaths. As Peter finds the limits of his magic and starts to push the envelope with his abilities, even though his efforts are not always successful.

      As the rush to find the perpetrator builds, he involves his dad in one of the bands, has a steamy liaison with the girlfriends of one of the murder victims and we find out more about Nightingale. It all ends as a bit of a blast, with a nice subtle twist.

      The characters are growing in stature, Grant in particular. The plot was not quite as strong as the first book, but this is a series, so you are getting lines from the first, swirling through this book, and I can see others still being carried forward to the next. One of the great things about the book is the characterisation of the city, it does feel alive and real. Good solid urban fantasy.