Whispers Under Ground

 

by Ben Aaronovitch (read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith)

Rivers of London: Book 3

 

 

 

Kobna Holdbrook-Smith could read me the phone book...

 

 

I found Rivers of London on the late, great BookLikes. Wish I could remember who it was exactly so I could thank them for the hours of reading enjoyment. Urban and magic and paranormal are not my usual fare but it is a lot of fun -- and that is what I need right now. I would love to give a synopsis of the story but I am so far behind on writing reviews that the best I can offer right now is loved it/liked it/ hated it.

 

I am enchanted by Aaronovitch's imagination. Magic and Scotland Yard? Rivers personified? And he manages to do it without being entirely juvenile and crass and without being dark and depressing. So, Rivers of London remains on the must read list.

Four stars times two -- four stars for the writing and four stars for the narrator whose performance and command of accents brings the story to life. Okay, another 4 stars for the cover art, too.

Broken Homes

 

By Ben Aaronovitch (read by Kobna Holdbook-Smith)

 

Book Four: Rivers of London

I don't remember how I got hooked on this series but hooked  I am.  Some of it had to do with the narrator,  Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, who is amazing. He moves seamlessly from regional British accent to regional British accent  to patois to American accent to German. He has one of the best American accents I have heard. He is definitely on my list of "you can read me the phonebook" audio performers.

But, it is not just the reader, it is the story and the writing, too. The stores are complicated and deep without being heavy. The characters are complicated and believable. Well, not entirely believable because this is fantasy, after all.

Four stars.

Foxglove Summer

 

by Ben Aaronvitch (read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith)

First published on Booklikes, June, 2019

 

 

 

I had been saving this TBR item for a chance to play it in BL-opoly and have finally gotten my chance. I burned the midnight oil listening to it last night and just could not put it down. This might be the fifth book in the series but it is the second book that I have read. No matter. I will eventually get to all of them, as long as they are read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith (who is now on my list of "you can read me the phone book" audio narrators).

As many of you already know, I'm an fully addicted to audio books, which is good since actual eyeballing page after page puts me to sleep (and so does long distance driving now, too, but that is another conversation) and you can't read very much if your eyes are closed. So reading for me has taken on a new dimension--and sadly, taken away others (like the ability to go back and re-read a particular passage or even to book mark it).  I have become very attuned to the narrators. Good narration makes a good book even better and bad narrators have to be ignored for the sake of getting through much loved stories.

I think that part of the reason that I am so enamored of this series is because of the narrator. You have to understand that my internal narrator speaks with one voice no matter who wrote the book and no matter where the book is set and that voice has is now  a bastardized mix of Philadelphia (where I grew up)  and Boston (where I have lived for the last 40-some odd years) speak -- two very clearly distinct  but very clearly Yankee accents. I can't tell you what a difference listening to a Brit read a book written by a Brit makes. It adds another dimension to the story, that I can't conjure up on my own.

But not all narrators are equal and a good narrator who has excellent command over multiple regional accents, especially those regional British accents that are full of glottal stops, and who can move from one accent to another seamlessly has a price beyond pearls. Holdbrook-Smith is one of them. In fact, I can't wait to finish this screed and get back to listening.

But I do have to talk about the book itself, don't I? Fun series with a serious tone. Police procedural and paranormal fantasy rolled into one. Maybe that is why I am enjoying it. Do not think Terry Pratchett. There is not much to joke about when the first part of the book is about the unexplained disappearance of two pre-teens. Still, the topic is taken up without the gut-wrenching terror and suspense that some author find indispensable (otherwise, I would have DNFed it long before I got to this point of even writing about it because I just don't enjoy graphically explicit gratuitous violence). And, now I must get back to reading this book.