A new Italian paperback edition of LA LUNA SU SOHO, the second Rivers of London/Peter Grant novel by Ben Aaronovitch, is out today! Published by Fanucci Editore, here’s the synopsis…

Una canzone. Questo è ciò che Peter Grant, poliziotto della Metropolitan Police Service di Londra e apprendista stregone, non può far a meno di notare quando esamina per la prima volta il cadavere di Cyrus Wilkins, batterista jazz part-time e contabile a tempo pieno. Causa del decesso: attacco cardiaco durante un’esibizione al Club 606 di Soho. Fin qui tutto normale. Ma le note del buon vecchio jazz risuonano da quel corpo esanime come fosse uno stereo. E Peter sa che si tratta di una morte tutt’altro che naturale.

E mentre qualcosa di inquietante e di magico si muove nell’ombra uccidendo una serie di musicisti jazz dilettanti e semi-professionisti durante le loro esecuzioni, Peter dovrà indagare anche su un secondo intricatissimo caso che nulla ha a che vedere con il primo. Mentre investiga intorno a questa serie di morti tutte avvenute nel quartiere di Soho, Peter scoprirà che la misteriosa minaccia magica porta direttamente sulle tracce di un giovane musicista jazz, un talentuoso trombettista di nome Richard “Lord” Grant, altrimenti noto come suo padre. Con l’aiuto del detective Thomas Nightingale, l’ultimo mago presente in Inghilterra, e l’appassionata di jazz Simone Fitzwilliam, tenterà di combattere il più terribile degli incubi che avanza strisciando per le strade di Soho in cerca di un po’ di Jazz.

Dopo I fiumi di Londra Ben Aaronovitch torna con il secondo, rocambolesco urban fantasy della serie Peter Grant, La luna su Soho.

Fanucci has also published RIVERS OF LONDON — the first novel in the series — as I FIUMI DI LONDRA.

MOON OVER SOHO and the rest of Ben’s Rivers of London novels and novellas are published in the UK by Gollancz. The series is published in North America by Del Rey (1-3), DAW Books (4-) and Subterranean Press (novellas). The series has also been published widely in translation.

Here’s the English-language synopsis for MOON OVER SOHO…

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 going to let me exhume corpses to see if they were playing my tune, so it was back to old-fashioned legwork, starting in Soho, the heart of the scene. I didn’t trust the lovely Simone, Cyrus’ ex-lover, professional jazz kitten and as inviting as a Rubens’ portrait, but I needed her help: there were monsters stalking Soho, creatures feeding off that special gift that separates the great musician from someone who can raise a decent tune. What they take is beauty. What they leave behind is sickness, failure and broken lives.

And as I hunted them, my investigation got tangled up in another story: a brilliant trumpet player, Richard ‘Lord’ Grant – my father – who managed to destroy his own career, twice. That’s the thing about policing: most of the time you’re doing it to maintain public order. Occasionally you’re doing it for justice. And maybe once in a career, you’re doing it for revenge.

‘MOON OVER SOHO is very good. Ben Aaronovitch continues the successful formula of RIVERS OF LONDON in bringing to the surface the endearing minutae of a city that he clearly adores. He also demonstrates the “real world” problems of a ritual magician trying to have some sort of ‘normal’ life… Grant continues to observe his world(s) in a detached way – a narrative voice that lends itself well to dry humor (and fits less neatly with the book’s few over-the-top action scenes). Mr. Aaronovitch is, in short, writing the best contemporary occult detective series on the shelf today, and that’s by a substantial margin.’ — Pornokitsch

‘Unexpectedly and truly fun, RIVERS OF LONDON promised many great things for the further adventures of Peter Grant. MOON OVER SOHO… [is] just as entertaining and just exciting as the first, with added depth to boot… an excellent, and in my opinion better, continuation to Peter Grant’s story. Aaronovitch in no way disappoints, so readers of the first book should have no fear of that digging in to the second one. The authenticity and accuracy of the London described by Aaronovitch still amazes me, in fact his books are almost worth reading just for that and the cultural references.’ 5/5 — LEC Book Reviews

… enormous storytelling gusto… exhilarating and emotionally affecting…’ — SF Reviews

‘The excitement and entertainment hasn’t stopped in the slightest… this book once again blew my mind, and kept me reading well into the late night/early morning. You needn’t pick up RIVERS OF LONDON, Aaronovitch’s first in this series, but you’d regret it by the time you got to the end of MOON OVER SOHO and found out how good it was.’ — Fantasy Book Review

‘… as funny as it is fantastic… [The plot] hops along happily to a toe-tapping time signature, with a sweet solo here and an awesome cacophony of noise there… vast amounts of fun…’ — Speculative Scotsman