I laughed at this from Wikipedia (be careful of spoilers on the page): I think I’m in love with Peter Grant (and Chief Inspector Nightingale), but that could just be the influence of The Voice.

I loved that he took every part of it, from the very beginning, back to his classmate and sort-of-partner Lesley to talk over, not worrying (much) about whether or not she would believe him. Peter’s world is, if not turned upside-down, tilted at a startling angle, and everything changes. It’s no young adult book – the “f-bomb” is dropped liberally, for one thing, and then there’s the violence – but it is the story of the beginning of an apprenticeship, of the opening up of a strange, unsuspected world within the common mundane. Ben Aaronovitch’s style is utterly natural and conversational, perfectly in keeping with the first-person voice of young Peter Grant, his main character. The writing doesn’t hurt in that endeavor. There is nothing between Kobna Holdbrook-Smith and the experiences he tells of, no evidence whatsoever that the words he speaks were ever such dead things as print on a page. It’s lovely to hear him switch from what may be his own voice, here the voice of Peter Grant, to the dry light patrician tones of Nightingale – equally natural, equally fluent, and so different from the sound of Peter that it could truly be a different speaker. London being the (insert something less clichéd than “melting pot” here) that it is, KHS has a variety of not only British regional but international dialects to deal with: male, female, other, Scots, Cockney, British Received, Nigerian, more – all are wonderful. If for nothing else I love him for that – and there’s plenty more to adore.) He has a deep, dark, dusty voice, and reads aloud like a dream. (Hey, he pronounced “chaise longue” correctly. That word, for me, is a very good descriptor of Kobna Holdbrook-Smith’s narration of Rivers of London. The spelling is debatable, but it is, roughly, “gorgeois” – pronounced “gor-zhwah”. Mia Michaels, judging on So You Think You Can Dance, coined a word I’ve been using ever since. Which is going to be a problem here, because the sequel to Rivers of London is not (legally) available in the US. And he seems to have been the first to send a Dalek up a staircase. Ben Aaronovitch has an excellent pedigree: he wrote two 7th-Doctor-era serials for Doctor Who, and has written DW novels which I will now have to seek out.

Rivers of london audio book