Here are 63 books that Rivers of London fans have personally recommended once you finish the Rivers of London series.
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I’m a British author for children and young adults and have lost count of the number of books I’ve published. I’ve won awards, and my books have been translated into many languages. I’m also an avid reader: have been for almost all of my life. I know a good series when it hooks me in!
This is the first book in a series that seems—hooray!—never ending.
Novels, novellas, short stories, graphic novels…they’re all built around a wonderful idea: police procedural in a version of the modern world where rivers have goddesses, trees have dryads, and vampires, werewolves, elves, and all the other creatures of folklore and fantasy matter-of-factly exist alongside council estates and the internet. And so have to be policed.
The "Isaacs" (named after Isaac Newton) are that branch of the Old Bill which deals with magic, so its inspectors and constables tend to be witches and wizards. All the books are incredibly inventive and funny. I love them.
Book 1 in the Rivers of London series, from Sunday Times Number One bestselling author Ben Aaronovitch.
My name is Peter Grant, and I used to be a probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police Service, and to everyone else as the Filth.
My story really begins when I tried to take a witness statement from a man who was already dead...
Probationary Constable Peter Grant dreams of being a detective in London's Metropolitan Police. After taking a statement from an eyewitness who happens to be a ghost, Peter comes…
I was born in 1957, the year the Space Race started when the USSR launched its first satellite and grew up with astronauts and cosmonauts on the TV. Yuri Gagarin and Gordon Cooper were familiar names to me as a child but I only really started to take notice as the Apollo programme ramped up. Science fiction influenced me at an very early age with books like Kemlo and Tom Swift and, having pestered my English teacher with my embryonic works decided at seventeen to write my own novel. Some years later and just short of sixty I finally wrote Sirkkusaga and now have seven published works out there - as well as two anthologies.
A three novel serial with tones of Victorian adventure and steampunk fantasy that sets three disparate characters against a mysterious cabal with influence in the government of an unnamed European country (possibly an analogue of Victorian England) – with the sinister glass of which the books are made able to record and play back real-life events (quite often sexual or violent) to be experienced (quite literally) by the reader.
Each chapter of the books are seen from the point of view of one of the main characters; Miss Celeste Temple – a stereotypical Victorian adventuress and heir to a fortune who finds herself drawn to both Cardinal Chang – neither a cardinal nor Oriental, he is a dichotomy, capable of extreme violence but with a decent side and a love of poetry; and to the Contessa – ostensibly evil, she is a beautiful, cunning and deadly woman who seems to…
Here begins an extraordinary alliance—and a brutal and tender, shocking, and electrifying adventure to end all adventures.
It starts with a simple note. Roger Bascombe regretfully wishes to inform Celeste Temple that their engagement is forthwith terminated. Determined to find out why, Miss Temple takes the first step in a journey that will propel her into a dizzyingly seductive, utterly shocking world beyond her imagining—and set her on a collision course with a killer and a spy—in a bodice-ripping, action-packed roller-coaster ride of suspense, betrayal, and richly fevered dreams.
I’ve always been drawn to the quiet mystery behind ordinary lives, the sense that something sacred hides in the margins. As a caregiver, teacher, and author, I’ve seen how small moments carry enormous weight. That’s why I created this book list: each title touched me deeply and helped shape my own writing, especially Midrash Whispered By Stars. I write to honor forgotten souls, overlooked stories, and the quiet transformations that happen when no one’s watching. These books aren’t just favorites, they’re part of the emotional and spiritual DNA behind everything I create.
I recommend this book because it was one of the first books that made me feel like the world was bigger than anything I’d known.
When I read it, I remember feeling that rush, that sense of being lifted out of my own life and dropped into a place where courage mattered, and strange new landscapes waited around every corner. It wasn’t just adventure; it was escape, wonder, possibility.
Readers who love getting lost in another world will understand that feeling immediately. And it fits my theme because it reminds me that stepping into the unknown, whether on Mars or in an ancient story, can change the way you see everything.
Rediscover the adventure-pulp classic that gave the world its first great interplanetary romance-now featuring an introduction by Junot Diaz
In the spring of 1866, John Carter, a former Confederate captain prospecting for gold in the Arizona hills, slips into a cave and is overcome by mysterious vapors. He awakes to find himself naked, alone, and forty-eight million miles from Earth-a castaway on the dying planet Mars. Taken prisoner by the Tharks, a fierce nomadic tribe of six-limbed, olive-green giants, he wins respect as a cunning and able warrior, who by grace of Mars's weak gravity possesses the agility of a…
I was born in 1957, the year the Space Race started when the USSR launched its first satellite and grew up with astronauts and cosmonauts on the TV. Yuri Gagarin and Gordon Cooper were familiar names to me as a child but I only really started to take notice as the Apollo programme ramped up. Science fiction influenced me at an very early age with books like Kemlo and Tom Swift and, having pestered my English teacher with my embryonic works decided at seventeen to write my own novel. Some years later and just short of sixty I finally wrote Sirkkusaga and now have seven published works out there - as well as two anthologies.
I read these as a young teenager and loved them, they’re star-spanning, rip-roaring tales of civilisations pitted against each other across the universe. Triplanetary is the first book of the Lensman series but we have to wait until book two; First Lensman, for the arrival of the titular characters.
The good guys (Hooray! Including Earth, of course) have an advantage in that certain of them have been selected by the Arisians to wear a device called the Lens - which allows them to harness their mental powers against the Boskonians (the bad guys - boo!), who are assisted by the evil Eddorians.
It’s all good fun, and I admit to the stories having influenced me slightly.
Triplanetary is a space opera by E. E. Smith. This is the original version first serialized in Amazing Stories magazine in 1934. Smith later reworked the story into the first of two Lensman prequels which was then published in 1948. Triplanetary covers an eons-long eugenics project of the super-intelligences of the Arisians an alien race breeding two genetic lines to become the ultimate weapon in their cosmic war with the Eddore.
In school, I wasn’t fond of physics. Most of my education focused on the history of human civilization and culture. I rediscovered physics partly thanks to the books mentioned here—and the strangeness of quanta. My studies, exposure to Tao and Zen philosophies, and exploration of physics have given me a unique perspective and awareness: humanity is merely a tiny particle in the universe, neither central nor the king of all creation. Nothing new, of course—Buddha, Heraclitus, and Shakespeare all knew it well.
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld hooked me from the very first pages—cliché as that may sound, it’s true. Virtually the entire book (as well as others from the Discworld) I read with a smile on my face.
Pratchett’s unique humor, his satirical take on human nature, the imaginative world of Discworld, and his reflections on reality come together in a brilliant mix that made me read… and read… and read.
On a world supported on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown), a gleeful, explosive, wickedly eccentric expedition sets out. There's an avaricious buy inept wizard, a naive tourist whose luggage moves on hundreds of dear little legs, dragons who only exist if you believe in them, and of course The Edge of the planet...
I've read mystery books since I was a kid in a small Iowa town and my
mother was on the library board and in charge of reviewing books for
purchase. She would bring home mysteries and I grew up reading about
James Bond, The Saint, Miss Marple, and many, many other 'classic'
detectives. I wrote my first mystery 'novel' when I was ten and it took
me forty more years to finally decide to get serious about it. I found I
wanted to write about an older demographic—my heroes and heroines are
usually in their 40s or 50s. I try to make my characters believable and
down-to-earth—except they get involved in the occasional murder!
I love reading books that look underneath what is shown to most people—how things work behind the scenes, or a glimpse into a different world.
This book takes what we think is a modern-day world and gives it a bit of a twist, with a special division of the London police charged with handling supernatural crimes that take place, well, in plain sight.
The thing that was most intriguing about this narrator was that I had the feeling I was learning with him about all the ghosts and goblins and beasties as he discovered them. I was as surprised as he was about the solving of the mystery.
I was my dad's vinyl-wallah: I changed his records while he lounged around drinking tea, and that's how I know my Argo from my Tempo. And it's why, when Dr Walid called me to the morgue to listen to a corpse, I recognised the tune it was playing. Something violently supernatural had happened to the victim, strong enough to leave its imprint like a wax cylinder recording. Cyrus Wilkinson, part-time jazz saxophonist and full-time accountant, had apparently dropped dead of a heart attack just after finishing a gig in a Soho jazz club. He wasn't the first. No one was…
I grew up in a family of readers who valued humor above all else. I’ve always sought out novels that weren’t full of themselves or too serious. For example, I don’t actually like literature for the most part (sacrilege?) As a result, I’ve veered toward upmarket genre books that amuse me. My list reflects what I discovered as I explored this realm. It also led me to write mysteries and thrillers that are infused with my version of humor, which I must admit will never match the authors on my list. These guys are amazing.
Fforde takes literary characters and brings them to life in a mystery format. Inside jokes about them and well-constructed absurd situations kept me amused. I admire the creativity and imagination a book like this requires. The plot is also ingenious, with unexpected twists and turns.
I’d say I never read a book like it, but I’ve read others by him, and he continues to create fun novels with literary and fairy tale characters. I recommend all of them.
Meet Thursday Next, literary detective without equal, fear or boyfriend
Jasper Fforde's beloved New York Times bestselling novel introduces literary detective Thursday Next and her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England-from the author of The Constant Rabbit
Fans of Douglas Adams and P. G. Wodehouse will love visiting Jasper Fforde's Great Britain, circa 1985, when time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously: it's a bibliophile's dream. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic…
I love old records: there’s a romance to thinking about who originally owned them, where they were listened to, what life soundtrack they defined. My connection to the music industry is tenuous at best. I’ve been in recording studios, helped load equipment in and out of gigs—roadie duty?—designed liner notes, and even performed as a backup singer in a pick-up band of coworkers from the retailer where I worked. (We had two gigs.) I also like when humor is used in mysteries to offset the darkness of murder and define a character—how he or she will get through the challenge. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have!
I enjoyed the character of Junior Bender in the first book in this series, and I loved this one even more.
Junior is one of those wrong-side-turned-right-side-of-the-law characters, and sometimes it’s fun to ride shotgun with a character who gets his hands dirty. Rounding out the music industry connection is an old record producer who had some sketchy business dealings back in the sixties.
I confess, just the mention of the sixties for the backstory was enough for me (I love experiencing that era through different stories), and with an already-loved protagonist, I was all in.
JUNIOR BENDER UNTANGLES ONE OF THE WEIRDEST MYSTERIES IN TINSELTOWN
LA burglar Junior Bender has (unfortunately) developed a reputation as a competent private investigator for crooks. The unfortunate part about this is that regardless of whether he solves the crime or not, someone dangerous is going to be unhappy with him, either his suspect or his employer.
Now Junior is being bullied into proving aging music industry mogul Vinnie DiGaudio is innocent of the murder of a nasty tabloid journalist he'd threatened to kill a couple times. It doesn’t help that the dead journalist’s widow is one pretty lady, and…
I love old records: there’s a romance to thinking about who originally owned them, where they were listened to, what life soundtrack they defined. My connection to the music industry is tenuous at best. I’ve been in recording studios, helped load equipment in and out of gigs—roadie duty?—designed liner notes, and even performed as a backup singer in a pick-up band of coworkers from the retailer where I worked. (We had two gigs.) I also like when humor is used in mysteries to offset the darkness of murder and define a character—how he or she will get through the challenge. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have!
It’s a parody of Noel and Liam Gallagher, who famously have a somewhat troubled sibling relationship (putting it mildly), running around London to solve a murder. I’m not the most well-versed Oasis fan, but I know enough about them to have gotten a kick out of this.
It was a fast read, and I finished it in about a day. I don’t mind cursing in a humorous mystery, and frankly, I don’t think you could do this story justice without the F-bombs.
"If you wish cozy mysteries had more f-bombs, this series is for you. I definitely recommend it-no maybe about it." Andrew Shaffer, New York Times bestselling author of HOPE NEVER DIES: AN OBAMA BIDEN MYSTERY
Noel & Liam Reunited? Definitely... Maybe.
Prayers have been answered. Hell has frozen over. The Gallagher brothers have finally gotten back together. Only it's not to play music - it's to solve a murder. Recently, the club of celebrities-turned-sleuths has exploded with names like Barack Obama, Queen Elizabeth II and Taylor Swift appearing on the list. Liam and Noel add a touch of rock n'…
I love old records: there’s a romance to thinking about who originally owned them, where they were listened to, what life soundtrack they defined. My connection to the music industry is tenuous at best. I’ve been in recording studios, helped load equipment in and out of gigs—roadie duty?—designed liner notes, and even performed as a backup singer in a pick-up band of coworkers from the retailer where I worked. (We had two gigs.) I also like when humor is used in mysteries to offset the darkness of murder and define a character—how he or she will get through the challenge. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have!
I’m a fan of characters who have messy lives that need fixing, and that’s Dahlia “Doll” Devine (lead singer of a country band).
Instead of the record side of the industry, this one gives us the grimy dive bar version with a house all-girl band. I easily pictured being up there on stage with Dahlia (drums, maybe? tambourine?). There’s a strong character growth arc, too, which was satisfying.
From award-winning author Lori Rader-Day, Wreck Your Heart is an engaging, “wisecracking and wonderful” crime novel with a big heart, about a country and midwestern singer out to catch her big break before family―or murder―wrecks everything.
Dahlia “Doll” Devine had the kind of hardscrabble beginning that could launch a thousand broken-hearted country songs, but now she’s the star of her own stage at McPhee’s Tavern. As part of Chicago’s―yes, Chicago’s―country music scene, Dahlia is an up-and-coming singer in spangles and boots of classic country tunes. Up and coming, that is, until her boyfriend Joey up and went, taking the rent…
