Books tagged with: london

Dan Shaper is a wreck, a private "fixer" who takes on jobs for those people who won't or can't go to the police. Constantly haunted by an event in his past life while working as a violent underworld enforcer the only way he can keep those crippling memories at bay is by a growing cocktail of drugs....

I found this book during a post Christmas hunt in my local Waterstones after receiving a number of gift vouchers. I had never read anything by the author (or indeed the publisher) but have seen the third novel in the series (the Immorality Engine) appearing around the web for a while. For me one of...

Illustration ©2019 Francis Vallejo from The Folio Society edition of Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys. The asymmetrical sequel to Gaiman’s American Gods, Anansi Boys makes use of the same dramatic conceit, that Gods exist and walk amongst us. However, this story from G...

I remember reading the short story "Red Reign" about 20 years ago, written by Newman and published in the Mammoth Book of Vampires. This short story formed the basis for the novel and it's been on my list of books to read for some time. The imminent re-release of the sequel "The Bloody Red Baron" ha...

Broken Homes is the fourth novel in Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series and each one gets better and better - this one though has a completely unexpected twist at the end that I guarantee will leave you breathless and have you clambering through the book looking for the clues along the way. One...

Dead by Dawn is the 7th novel in the Jason Dark series by Guido Henkel. A woman in good health dies overnight, and to make matters worse it's Jason Dark's next door neighbour who's snuffed it, something wicked is at work in London town. As his investigation leads him down to the seedy underbelly of...

Dodger, a young sewer "tosher" who works beneath the streets of Victorian London is guided along series of events that will transform his life and those around him. It all starts when a young women is beset upon by two ruffians and Dodger rescues the young lady from certain death. I was quite surpr...

Down Station is actually a real station on the London Underground. You can't however visit this place though, the Trains don't stop there and if you're lucky you can but catch a glimpse of it between Green Park and Hyde Park Corner on the Piccadilly Line. You can see the outside of this abandoned st...

Drood is an 800-page historical novel by Dan Simmons, published in 2009, and on the face of it that page count should be a warning. It mostly isn't. The premise comes wrapped in a conceit: the book purports to be a secret manuscript by Wilkie Collins, friend and rival to Charles Dickens, sealed away...

The premise of Endangered Creatures is that there is a secret part of London Zoo in Regents Park that the public never get to see. In this hidden area are housed the real endangered creatures; those of mythology, creatures that most people don't even believe exist or believe to have died out centuri...

Full Dark House is the first novel in the long running series that follows the enigmatic detectives Bryant and May as they attempt to solves crimes that few would dare to touch. The novel begins in a very unexpected and quite brilliant manner, by one of the main characters dying in a large explosion...

King Rat is the debut of the award winning British author China Miéville. The novel begins with Saul returning from a camping trip to the top floor flat he shares with his father, deciding not to wake him he goes straight to bed. In the early hours of the following morning he is rudely awakened by...

Kraken is essentially "grown up" urban fantasy - and when I say grown up I don't mean littered with expletives but with a deal of maturity and written without compromise (as all Miéville's works are). You won't find any soppy vampires or angst ridden werewolves here, Kraken is a complicated mix of m...

London Falling is the first in Paul Cornell's Shadow Police series. For those who don't know, Paul Cornell is an award winning author who writes across a variety of media and one of only two people to have been Hugo nominated for prose, TV and comics. He's also written a number of Doctor...

Reviewed by Ed Prior. Moon Over Soho is the second novel in Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series about Metropolitan Police Constable and trainee wizard Peter Grant and his magical mentor DCI Thomas Nightingale. Moon Over Soho finds PC Peter Grant still living with the fallout from his first en...

Primeval: Extinction Event is an original story set within the Primeval universe and featuring the cast of the hit TV series, written by Dan Abnett and published by Titan Books. Strange anomalies are ripping holes in the very fabric of time, creating rifts that allow creatures from the distant past...

Rivers of London is an urban fantasy novel by Ben Aaronovitch. Peter Grant was just a probationary constable in the Metropolitan Police Force and faced a life in the drudgery of the Case Progression Unit (doing paperwork so real coppers don't have to). Then one night, on a cold, wet night while inve...

Sixty One Nails is an urban fantasy novel of a secret war raging beneath the streets of London, written by Mike Shevdon. Under the nations capital there is a whole other world where magic is real, the world of the Feyre. A dark magic will be unleashed by the Untained… Unless a new hero can be found...

World Fantasy Award winning series Strange Tales has now reached its fifth volume, offering again a bunch of tales ranging from SF to horror, from fantasy to supernatural, sharing a "strange" or "weird" character. The present book includes sixteen brand new stories, penned by authors from both side...

The Aylesford Skull is the fourth novel in the Narbondo series, following the adventures of the brilliant but eccentric Professor Langdon St. Ives and written by one of the founding fathers of the Steampunk genre - James P Blaylock. Not only has Blaylock won a number of awards, he's also been recom...

The Blood Witch is the 8th volume in the Jason Dark: Ghost Hunter series of Novellas by Guido Henkel. An ancient curse re-surfaces and from deep within England's dark forests comes a hideous terror, stronger than ever and stalking the fog wrapped streets of Victorian London. Young girls are disappe...

The Bookman is a steampunk-esq novel of victorian adventure meets history, technology and erm... books, written by the talented author Lavie Tidhar. If the British Library was a living entity and, on wanting to write a book was told ‘write what you know’ then this is the book it would write. The h...

Framed for Murder and on the run, Detective Inspector Cass Jones gets unwelcome attention wherever he goes, including being hounded by his former colleagues. As he works desperately to save his kidnapped nephew and gain answers he finds himself going up against The Bank and its sinister employees on...

The Curse of Kali is the 10th volume in the Jason Dark series by Guido Henkel. The intrepid Inspector Lestrade needs all the help he can get after a the decapitated corpse of a rich writer is found in the hands of a statue of the Hindu goddess Kali. Not even sure if he's looking for a human killer...

Robert Rankin is without a doubt one of the select few funniest and sometimes strangest authors alive today. Often his novels are more than a little odd and with The Educated Ape he manages to merge these styles with a steampunk theme and some quite brilliant characterisation. This is the third nov...

Charlie Higson is probably best known as part of a series that for many in the UK was one of the funniest things to watch on TV in the 90's - the Fast Show (known as Brilliant in the US). The irreverent and often off-beat humour was guaranteed to make me laugh and still does. Until this year I didn...

The Executioners Heart is the fourth novel in the Newbury and Hobbes series and follows on from the events of The Immorality Engine - although you don't need to have read that or any of the previous books to enjoy The Executioners Heart. The Queen's agents Sir Maurice Newbury and Miss Veronica Hobbe...

The Road to Bedlam is the second volume in the The Courts of the Feyre series, which started with the incredible debut novel Sixty One Nails by Angry Robot Author Mike Shevdon. The novel begins shortly after the events in Sixty One Nails with Blackbird expecting the birth of their child any time so...

The Rook is a surprisingly impressive piece of fiction, managing to turn a literary device often used to provide back story into an integral part of the story. Myfanwy Thomas wakes one morning in a London park surrounded by bodies wearing latex gloves, somewhat battered and bruised and with no memor...

What a great idea for a novel. A new little twist on the already satiated apocalypse genre. An underground cavern is unearthed opening the way for thousands of fast breeding “vesps” which hunt by sound and kill everything living they hear on their journey across Europe to our very own British border...

The Skin Map is the first volume in a new fantasy series called Bright Empires, written by Stephen R Lawhead. Kit Livingstone is one of people that have never seemed to get used to living in society, passing through various dead-end jobs with no real plans or ambitions and far too apathetic when it...

Will Swyfte, Mark Chadbourn’s protagonist in The Sword of Albion, has been widely compared to James Bond. An emphatic, smooth talking bachelor with fierce fighting skills and a place in the Queen’s palace, it’s easy to liken this spy to the most famous fictional agent of the 20th century. But there’...

As with many urban fantasy detective novels, Whispers Underground starts with the discovery of a body. On this occasion its an American exchange student with a wealthy, politically powerful family who is found brutally murdered at the far end of the Baker street tube station. With the pressure of a...

Who is Charlie Keeper, a young adult fantasy novel written and self published by Marcus Alexander with original Artwork by Lobak Oren. This novel has created such a stir that Graffiti artists, including the Corrupt Government Crew have previously tagged Charlie Keeper inspired characters around Lond...

Smoke is a book that presents the idea - what if your stronger emotions were visible? People's Anger, Lust and Lies all visible as real smoke and soot that settles around them, permeating their clothes and the space around them. Within this world Children are born carrying "the seeds of evil" wi...

First of all: don't worry. Mark Samuels - the well known British horror writer- is alive and well ( although, maybe, crossing his fingers). It's not common to dedicate a new short story anthology to celebrate a living author ( whose career, hopefully, will last for many, many years to come)...

I've always had a soft spot for Sherlock Holmes. The books are wonderful pieces of classic fiction (my favourite being the Hounds of the Baskervilles) and modern interpretations such as those penned by Moffat and Gattiss help to keep this Centenarian alive in the minds of millions. I've n...

The Hanging Tree is the sixth novel in the Rivers of London series. For those who have yet to experience these wonderful books imagine an Urban Fantasy with police procedural elements, warmly written with a disarming humour and celebrating the many hidden rivers that wonder through London (with exce...

Angela thinks she knows her boyfriend Vince pretty well, that is until he goes missing. She quickly learns he has a hidden employment, his boss the infamous London crime lord Frederick Meloy (known as Fat Frederick, but nerver, ever as Fat Freddy). His secret job? tracking down arcane relics succ...

Newcon Press’ second novella series continues with Simon Clark’s story, set in the middle of the London Blitz. The title gives away the nature of what we are to expect – a Sherlock Holmes story, occurring in the twilight years of Baker Street’s favourite detective. During the 1940s, Jack Crofton,...

Lies Sleeping is the seventh book (eighth if you count The Furthest Station) in the impressive River of London urban fantasy series, following Peter Grant - detective constable for the metropolitan police and apprentice wizard. It looks like time may finally be up for the Faceless Man (Martin Chorl...

I picked this book up as I was looking for more urban fantasy to try. I love the Dresden files and given that new books in that series only seem to appear infrequently, I was getting an urban fantasy itch. This book stood out as it was recommended by talented and under-appreciated author Dave Hutchi...

Warlock Holmes is back. No, not Sherlock, Warlock. If you think about it, what makes more sense; a man who can somehow divine everything from a few clues, or a Warlock who just uses magic to do the same? The Sign of Nine continues the premise that Sir Conan Doyle’s original stories were actual...

I find it amazing how easy it is to miss things that are right on your doorstep. I grabbed this book online (not by choice, this was before the shops had re-opened) because I was after some easy reading. I often find good urban fantasy easy and immersive. It was only after actually picking the book...

If you are of a certain age, you will know that the 80s was by far the best decade for pop culture, the films, music, comics, books, all unbeatable. All the films and TV shows basking in that 80s nostalgia prove it so. But wait, what is that? A load of 90s-based films and TV shows are starting to be...

A long running series is a mixed blessing. You can return to the same characters over the books, but too often a series becomes stale quickly and the characters seem to live in statis were they never change. This can never be said of the excellent Rivers of London novels by Ben Aaronovitch and...

One of the many lessons that I have learned in life is that you do not mess with Mummies. Either kind. Annoying a new mother who is trying to get their child onto the bus if dangerous and only equalled by an antient Egyptian Mummy rising from the dead. The Mummies in Lisa Tuttle’s The Curious...

There are two ways to treat fairy folk in a fantasy novel. You can hide them, only the protagonist knowing that there is a secret world in the forest. Or you can embrace them. Make the likes of goblins and fairies' part of everyday life. In A Market of Dreams and Destiny by Trip Galey, an accord has...

There are two ways of writing fiction set in the Victorian era; set a fictional book in the real era or write within the Victorian multiverse. This is a playground that I have read many books in, a world where Sherlock Holmes can investigate new cases, but also one in which he can work alongsid...

Forget Marvel and their Marvelverse, the place that I want to be is in Christian Klaver’s Victorianverse. This is an alternative history of the era, but also of the fiction of the time. In the author’s 'The Classified Dossier’ series, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson have already...

It feels like we take science for granted in the modern world; buildings that tower into the sky, above them flying machines made from metal. Stop and think for a moment at how wonderous all these advances have been, how we use the internet to communicate today, or how a simple invention like the LE...

I always forget how unpleasant some of the antiheros were in Victorian era fantasy and science fiction. In my mind I think of the era being full of ladies and gentlemen, but there were plenty of loathsome people too. Looking back on the working conditions and how society treated its poor, perhaps I...