The car was called an Asbo. I had to look it up.

Over the past few months I’ve read all ten novels in the Rivers of London series, along with the short stories, novellas, and now the graphic novels. I don’t often binge a series straight through, but Ben Aaronovitch’s mashup of police procedural, urban fantasy, and dry British wit was addictive.

The characters are one of the series’ great strengths. They are distinct and engaging, and reflect the diversity of modern London. The narrator is Peter Grant, a young constable of African descent who unexpectedly finds himself apprenticed into the arcane branch of the Metropolitan Police that handles magical crimes (staff size: 1). I enjoyed his journey from wide-eyed rookie to one of the most capable practitioners of magic in the police force without ever losing his bemused and pragmatic tone.

His mentor, Thomas Nightingale, has a long and mostly undisclosed past. That narrative choice keeps him slightly at arm’s length; he never quite becomes as fully fleshed-out as the rest of the cast. But by shifting Nightingale more into the background over time, the story avoids the usual fate of powerful mentor characters. He doesn’t die dramatically to make space for the student (think Obi-Wan, Yoda, and countless others) to keep him from overshadowing Peter’s story.

Peter’s relationships evolve across the series in sometimes surprising ways. His dynamic with Leslie begins as a standard buddy cop and takes several left turns. And then there are the rivers themselves: the major and minor waterways of London, each with their own genii locorum, gods and goddesses of place. Peter winds up romantically involved with one of them.

Peter’s narration is laced with London dialect, police jargon, and expressions drawn from his Sierra Leonian heritage. Even outside of dialogue, Peter has a running fascination (his colleagues might say obsession) with architecture. He drops dry commentary on the varying styles of British building over the centuries, including some withering assessments of the seventies and eighties. These asides are often funny, occasionally impenetrable, and part of the book’s distinctive voice.

As an American reader, this provided atmosphere and location. As with most British novels, I guessed at the meaning as needed. But partway through the first novel I opened a ChatGPT tab, titled it “British translations,” and started pasting in passages where I suspected I was missing some layers. That got me more than just definitions. It provided context such as sociocultural backgrounds, nuances of class, history, traffic patterns, architectural references, and the distinctively British perspective on policing. You can certainly enjoy the books without that, but I got a deeper appreciation of the milleu by taking a few minutes to get some background.

As one example, Peter casually refers to his first car as his “Ford Asbo”. At first I thought it was some kind of British rebranding of one of the Ford models, until I learned that “ASBO” stands for Anti-Social Behaviour Order, a British legal designation for petty criminals and public nuisances. The car wasn’t just junky; it was the kind of vehicle you’d expect to find driven by a teenage hooligan. That one word tells you all about Peter’s self-image, his sense of humor, and his social circles, providing you know what it means.

See below for links to the series, if I've piqued your interest.