Crow Investigations Series

Crow Investigations Series - review

I have become very fond of a distinctly niche genre - urban fantasy crime fiction. Books by Paul Cornell (Shadow Police) and Ben Aaronovitch (Rivers of London) combine magic in a present day world with a police procedural to make a fascinating and fun read. Having exhausted their output so far, I was looking for something else on the same lines and came across Sarah Painter's four books (to date) in the Crow Investigations series, starting with The Night Raven.

Although not strictly police procedural (the main character, Lydia Crow is a private investigator rather than a cop), this London-set series combines crime and magic with a genuinely original and delightful scenario. There are four 'magical families' in London with special abilities who have used these abilities to further their families fortunes - sometimes legally, sometimes otherwise.

Lydia is part of the the somewhat dodgy Crow family, but has been brought up out of the family circle and has just moved back to London to be dropped back into things in a big way. There are some lovely details - for example her coin (read the book for an explanation) - and Lydia's unlikely assistant, whose role grows through the series.

I will certainly continue to read these books, but they aren't quite up to the level of the other two mentioned above. This is because Sarah Painter drags out the action - arguably there is really only enough material for two books here. Lydia is constantly refusing to pay any attention to information that is essential to carry the plot forward - hardly a great characteristic for a P.I. Nonetheless, there's a rich inventiveness here, and things do pick up speed a little by book four. So, a worth addition to the field.

The Night Raven and its sequels are available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.

Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Comments

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's recent gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some ex

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5. However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor

Which idiot came up with percentage-based gradient signs

Rant warning: the contents of this post could sound like something produced by UKIP. I wish to make it clear that I do not in any way support or endorse that political party. In fact it gives me the creeps. Once upon a time, the signs for a steep hill on British roads displayed the gradient in a simple, easy-to-understand form. If the hill went up, say, one yard for every three yards forward it said '1 in 3'. Then some bureaucrat came along and decided that it would be a good idea to state the slope as a percentage. So now the sign for (say) a 1 in 10 slope says 10% (I think). That 'I think' is because the percentage-based slope is so unnatural. There are two ways we conventionally measure slopes. Either on X/Y coordiates (as in 1 in 4) or using degrees - say at a 15° angle. We don't measure them in percentages. It's easy to visualize a 1 in 3 slope, or a 30 degree angle. Much less obvious what a 33.333 recurring percent slope is. And what's a 100% slope

Search This Blog