Cornell, Paul -- London Falling
Modern-era London police detectives with magic. This makes a nice
counterpoise to Ben Aaronovitch's books. Like those, this one is
firmly grounded in real-life copper procedure (and politics, and
culture). Unlike those (but like Kate Griffin's books) magic is
omnipresent, overwhelming, and utterly outside the framework of
natural law. Once you see magic -- and it sees you -- you're running
on guesswork, intuition, your own fears, and half-remembered fairy
tales. Controlled experiments on magic are not the way through. (But
good old police work just might be.)
Unlike most urban fantasy, this is outright horror. The protagonists
are way out of their league, ass-deep in nightmares. They're all
damaged in everyday life to begin with (again, unlike Aaronovitch's
innocent-bystander-cop characters) and the supernatural goes right for
the weak spots. I don't read a lot of pure horror but this is what
it does well -- character portrayal via firewalk. So, definitely
disturbing in places, but a great start to a series.
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