Discover Cityread London 2016

The first of an urban fantasy / crime fiction series, Rivers of London follows the adventures of a rookie copper-turned-apprentice-wizard, Peter Grant, and his boss, the last wizard in England. A unique blend of police procedural, supernatural mayhem and threads of fascinating hidden history woven through the very fabric of the plot, Rivers of London is fast-moving, funny, full of warmth and features one of the greatest and most historically rich cites in the world: London.

About Ben Aaronovitch

Ben Aaronovitch was born in 1964. He had parents, some brothers, some sisters and a dog named after a Russian cosmonaut. He also had the kind of dull childhood that drives a person to drink, radical politics or science fiction.

Discovering in his early twenties that he had precisely one talent, he took up screenwriting at which he was an overnight success. He wrote for Doctor Who, Casualty and the world’s cheapest ever SF soap opera Jupiter Moon. He then wrote for Virgin’s New Adventures until they pulped all his books.

Then Ben entered a dark time illuminated only by an episode of Dark Knight, a book for Big Finish and the highly acclaimed but not-very-well-paying Blake’s 7 Audio dramas. Trapped in a cycle of disappointment and despair Ben was eventually forced to support his expensive book habit by working for Waterstones as a bookseller.

Ironically it was while shelving the works of others that Ben finally saw the light. He would write his own books, he would let prose into his heart and rejoice in the word. Henceforth, subsisting on nothing more than instant coffee and Japanese takeaway, Ben embarked on the epic personal journey that was to lead to Rivers of London (or Midnight Riot as it is known in the Americas).

At some point during the above, the most important thing in his life happened and he became a father to a son, Karifa, whom he affectionately refers to as ‘The Evil Monster Boy’. The Evil Monster Boy will be reaching university age soon, so all donations will be gratefully received.

Ben Aaronovitch currently resides in London and says that he will leave when they pry his city from his cold dead fingers.

“A very readable, perhaps even rabble-rousing tale about a roused rabble and the water-cannon-firing 'forces of law and order'”
Literary Review
“A page turner intent on keeping you avidly on edge into the small hours”
Metro
“Cracking ... an acute indictment of the power play between politicians and police ... Slovo's subject matter could not be more prescient”
Louise Doughty, The Guardian
“Ten Days tackles the dangers we all face when politics and policing collide. The result: an unputdownable Slovo read.”
Shami Chakrabarti
“An extraordinary novel - a page-turner thick with greed, ambition, love and secrets, and simultaneously an incisive portrayal of power and powerlessness in today's Britain”
Kamila Shamsie
“Sweeping in ambition and with a fine command of political and policing detail, this makes salutary, and alarming, reading.”
Daily Mail
“Slovo takes the London riots of 2011 as her blueprint, but she moves beyond that... Rather brilliantly, she increases the tension”
The Spectator
“Ten days of tension, trouble and tough truths . . . a cracker”
Val McDermid

2016 Blog Posts

Gillian Slovo on writing Ten Days

Ten Days is my thirteenth novel and, although it is in some ways a new departure for me, it is also a return to my beginnings as a novelist. When I started out I wrote crime – five books featuring my…

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Welcome to the new Cityread London website

Countless hours and cups of coffee later, we’ve finally managed to get it ready and launched. It’s been a bit of a wild ride but we hope the result will delight and satisfy. So what’s new? In addition…

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