PC Peter Grant is standing guard around a murder scene in Covent Garden when he meets a shifty looking man who claims to have seen everything that went on. On the surface this would seem to be a big break but unfortunately the man in question is dead. When a passer-by happens a little too close to him for comfort the dead man disappears but, taking the whole thing completely in his stride, PC Grant carries on looking for the ghost so he can finish taking his statement. A little later on he tells as much to one Inspector Nightingale, who happens past around the same time. This revelation serves to rescue PC Grant from a life of ignominy in the Case Progression Unit (they do the paperwork so that real police don't have to) and gets him transferred under the wing of Nightingale to join a unit that investigates the weird stuff in the undercurrent of London making him the first apprentice in fifty years and a trainee wizard to boot.

His first case starts with the murder in Covent Garden and soon leads to a bizarre series of deaths involving de-fenestration, exploding heads, shattered bones and beatings that seem to follow in the wake of a malicious spirit taking over the bodies of random people throughout the city and inciting them to extreme violence. This would be bad enough but in between investigating leads he also has to broker a peace accord between the warring deities, Mother and Father Thames, learn how to do magic and destroy a nest of vampires in Purley. Good honest coppering will never be the same again.

From the very first page 'Rivers of London' is so easy to like. The style is friendly and easy going, the pace is just right and the deadpan humour which is applied liberally throughout is very black and very, very funny. As crime novels go it's not going to set the world on fire although it does it's thing pretty well, but right up front you can tell that drama is not really the purpose of this book, fun is the purpose of this book and it's fun in spades. The cast of characters, whether real or other-worldly, is wonderfully drawn and full of wit and charm, none of them fully black or white but rather each is shades of grey, complex and three-dimensional, they feel real and you warm to them quickly.

Rivers of London is also fabulously rooted in 'place'. As someone who's lived, worked and grown up in and around London my whole life one of the best things about reading this is the way Aaronovich describes the London of his story. Whether he's talking about the nice bits or the not so nice he gives us beautifully crafted descriptions, rich in detail with little snippets of history thrown in and devoid of any cloying sentiment, it's the London I know and love and it's a joy to see it described as such by someone else. This kind of writing also comes across in his depictions of police work. I've never been a policeman and am unlikely ever to do so but I imagine that this is what police work is like. Largely humdrum, lots of leg work, very little in the way of blinding inspiration and long nights moaning into your beer at the local pub.

It would be very easy to describe Ben Aaronovitch as the next [insert author here] but it would do him a great injustice. His is a strong, independent voice honed from writing successfully (including for Dr. Who) for a while and while there are minor niggles, a couple of characters I would like to have found out more about, I'm sure that these things will be revealed in the next two installments, 'Moon Over Soho' and 'Whispers Under Ground' because this truly is wonderful stuff, written with real panache and a mischievous wink, terrific fun and I can't wait for the next books.

Rivers Of London is published by Gollancz and is available from The Book Depository, Blackwell and all good book stores.

Ben Aaronovitch has the obligatory blog and he also tweets.