Rivers Of London

Pretty good but I felt like I was supposed to have read something else first

Glad to see Beverly Brook get a prominent role in this one.

This is a more complex story than you'd normally find in comics, but it manages to pull it off well. It's concerned with the Russian mob's involvement with magic, with some of the (non-essential) dialogue written in Russian without the usual translation. It also brings in several of the characters from the novel series in a procedural that involves quite a lot of double-crossing on the part of the various villains. It probably doesn't make a lot of sense on its own, and requires knowledge of the novels, but it does fit beautifully in with them, providing further insight into one of the characters in particular. Given the complexity of the plot, it also rewards careful reading, but the sophistication is part of the strength.

Enjoyable story but lacks the usual zip zap. Does that make sense? Still, good fun and the artwork is bright and clean. Serves the story well.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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I enjoyed the first collection of Rivers of London comics, Body Work, but it felt like something was missing – I'm not sure what. Night Witch, on the other hand, built on that good foundation and topped it. This one felt whole, complete – there wasn't anything lacking here.

Some Russian bigwig's child has been taken – his wife is certain it's by someone/something supernatural. They try to take care of it on their own, recruiting Varvara Sidorovna – well, trying to. She tells them to get the police involved, specifying they request Nightingale's involvement. It's not that easy to sell official police involvement on this couple. The way they go about doing so isn't really that typical, either.

Still, Peter and Nightingale get into things and start turning up all sorts of interesting magical things – including The Faceless Man and Lesley. Speaking of which – comics-Lesley? Perfectly creepy.

The story feels a little scattered, but when it's all told, you can reflect on things and get all the pieces to fit into place nicely – moreso than you can when reading from front-to-back. But it's easy to forgive that because the story is so strong – and the little character beats are great.

The art is good – it's great to see the magic –as well as the characters – in these stories brought to life.

Bev's way of dealing with a home invasion crew of Russian mobsters made me laugh out loud – I don't know if Aaronovitch could've pulled it off in a novel, or if that's something he only could've accomplished with the help of an art team. Either way, I'm glad I got to read it.

There's not much more to say, a good story with some real enjoyable moments with these characters we want to spend time with. Sure, more novels would be nicer, but these do a good enough job helping to fill the time between them.