The Sword and Laser discussion

As someone who has worked for "The Job" for 22 years, and can recall reading this on a level 2 AID carrier in 2012 whilst on stand by for the London Olympics I can genuinely say it is one of the more accurate depictions of policing I have read - I would be surprised that a probbie got away without a stint in the CPU in the first 2 years, and most of the section houses are closed down now, but apart from the ghosts everything else is pretty much bang on!

Nice to know. The books have always felt accurate and very English...

I’ve heard [1] that the other urban fantasy series with a realistic policing is Paul Cornell‘s Shadow Police – unfortunately it did not sell well enough, so we are left with three volumes and unresolved major threads. https://www.goodreads.com/series/1097.... But be warned – it is much darker then Rivers of London.

BTW, I recall something about Cornell and Aaronovitch divying up London between their series. :-)

[1] I did read it, but everything I know about British police I learned form popculture, so I would not dare to judge that part.

Nice to get the confirmation, I always had the impression that Aaronovitch tried to be as accurate as possible (while still being interesting to read). It is one of the more satisfying traits of the series, showing us that doing things by the book actually has merits, even in a world as crazy as the Rivers books.

As a side note his depiction of London is also very accurate. Almost all of the places he mentions actually exist. If you use Google Street view you can do what I do and take a look for yourself:)

One of my mid term goals is having a tour of London visiting some of the RoL landmarks. There probably are guided tours already.

Nils wrote: "One of my mid term goals is having a tour of London visiting some of the RoL landmarks. There probably are guided tours already."

You can tell Aaronovitch grew up in London...

Sophie wrote: "As someone who has worked for "The Job" for 22 years, and can recall reading this on a level 2 AID carrier in 2012 whilst on stand by for the London Olympics I can genuinely say it is one of the mo..."

Nice to get this kind of confirmation :)

I'll give Shadow Police a go! I can confirm that the areas of london are very accurate - I've never been to Eel Pie Island, but have been to most other places mentioned!

Sophie wrote: "As someone who has worked for "The Job" for 22 years, and can recall reading this on a level 2 AID carrier in 2012 whilst on stand by for the London Olympics I can genuinely say it is one of the mo..."

I had always felt this way when reading the novels. It's cool to get confirmation.

Sophie wrote: "I'll give Shadow Police a go! I can confirm that the areas of london are very accurate - I've never been to Eel Pie Island, but have been to most other places mentioned!"

I also recommend the Shadow Police series.

AndrewP wrote: "As a side note his depiction of London is also very accurate. Almost all of the places he mentions actually exist. If you use Google Street view you can do what I do and take a look for yourself:)"

Good idea! I've looked up many of the settings so far and have really enjoyed it, although I haven't gotten all the way down to Google Street View.