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A review by veronica87
Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch
2.0
Reread via audiobook August 2019: Though the first book didn't really impress me very much when I read it back in 2014, I decided to give the series another chance mostly because I needed an audiobook for my treadmill time and this one was available. I have to say that while my initial impressions of the book haven't changed - if anything I think some aspects make even less sense now - I did enjoy the narrator. He brought some of the humor to life in an understated way soooo, I will try continuing with the series via audiobook...for now.
2 stars: plot
3 stars: narration
I know this series gets a lot of love and always comes up in comparisons to the Dresden books but, for me, it just felt a little flat. The London setting was nice and Peter Grant seems to be a solid, likeable character with a dry sense of humor but I kept waiting for the story to grab me by my shirt collar and refuse to let go...and that just never happened. The story takes place in modern London but all the supernatural elements felt tacked on willy-nilly, with no semblance of a mythology to tie it all together or to make sense of it. As for the secondary characters, they didn't fare much better in the fleshing out department than the main hero did, which is to say, not much depth going on for anyone.
Another thing that didn't ring quite true to me is just how easily Peter took the news that the supernatural world even exists. He may as well have been told the sky is blue for all the surprise or disbelief or even doubt he showed. There was never any conflict for him in learning that the world as it truly is is, in fact, quite different from the world as he's always known it. More to the point, there is never any conflict anywhere in the story. There is no real dissension between Peter and any of the immediate main characters with whom he associates. There is, to my mind, no tension between Peter and the female police officer he fancies. Oh sure, there are some supernatural murders to solve but that read like a police procedural and I never got any real sense of urgency from it. Even the conclusion, where a guilty party seemed to give in too easily, seemed devoid of any real gravitas.
I don't expect first books to be perfect and I don't expect characters to be fully realized this early in a series. What I do expect, what I NEED, in order to move forward with additional books is at least ONE character that captivates my interest or ONE relationship that intrigues me (and, no, it doesn't have to be romantic) but unfortunately everything here just fell a little too much on the bland side for my tastes. I found it very easy to find stopping places to put the book down and I usually had to motivate myself to pick it back up again. I'm not opposed to reading more in the series but I won't be tripping over myself to do so.
2 stars: plot
3 stars: narration
I know this series gets a lot of love and always comes up in comparisons to the Dresden books but, for me, it just felt a little flat. The London setting was nice and Peter Grant seems to be a solid, likeable character with a dry sense of humor but I kept waiting for the story to grab me by my shirt collar and refuse to let go...and that just never happened. The story takes place in modern London but all the supernatural elements felt tacked on willy-nilly, with no semblance of a mythology to tie it all together or to make sense of it. As for the secondary characters, they didn't fare much better in the fleshing out department than the main hero did, which is to say, not much depth going on for anyone.
Another thing that didn't ring quite true to me is just how easily Peter took the news that the supernatural world even exists. He may as well have been told the sky is blue for all the surprise or disbelief or even doubt he showed. There was never any conflict for him in learning that the world as it truly is is, in fact, quite different from the world as he's always known it. More to the point, there is never any conflict anywhere in the story. There is no real dissension between Peter and any of the immediate main characters with whom he associates. There is, to my mind, no tension between Peter and the female police officer he fancies. Oh sure, there are some supernatural murders to solve but that read like a police procedural and I never got any real sense of urgency from it. Even the conclusion, where a guilty party seemed to give in too easily, seemed devoid of any real gravitas.
I don't expect first books to be perfect and I don't expect characters to be fully realized this early in a series. What I do expect, what I NEED, in order to move forward with additional books is at least ONE character that captivates my interest or ONE relationship that intrigues me (and, no, it doesn't have to be romantic) but unfortunately everything here just fell a little too much on the bland side for my tastes. I found it very easy to find stopping places to put the book down and I usually had to motivate myself to pick it back up again. I'm not opposed to reading more in the series but I won't be tripping over myself to do so.