If you have spent any time in my company over the past two years, you’ll know that I have completely fallen for, and devoured multiple times, the ‘Rivers of London’ series by Ben Aaronovitch. You will know this, because I can’t really conduct a conversation without declaiming endlessly about how much I love these books. [One day I plan to inform Ben of this to his face, actually, but let’s save that little tidbit until it comes up in my stalking trial, shall we?]
If you haven’t come across them, I [obviously] can’t recommend them highly enough. The first one [‘Rivers of London’ in the UK, ‘Midnight Riot’ on this side of the pond] is the gateway drug. Go ahead. You’ll thank me. But strangely enough, my main goal with this post isn’t to talk about the books themselves, but instead, about the audio versions.
All the books in ‘The Rivers of London’ series are narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. Now, I have the same little problem with audio books that I do with the paper variety. The only difference being, when the Big One hits, the piles of books throughout my house will serve to hold the roof up, whereas my audio books may be less useful on that front.
Still, of all the scores of audiobooks I’ve listened to, [with the exception, of course, of Finding Fraser, which is marvellously narrated by Romy Nordlinger] I think Kobna is my favourite. He embodies Metropolitan PC Peter Grant perfectly, but where he really shines is with the wide cast of other characters. He’s a brilliant voice actor, and I’m feeling a bit bereft, because I just finished the most recent of the novels [Lies Sleeping, book 7 in the series] today. I may just have to start listening from the beginning again…
Luckily, as a big fan [and also a friend] of Mary Robinette Kowal, I have her new books ‘The Calculating Stars’ and ‘The Fated Sky‘ cued up to get me over my end-of-series emptiness. Yay! I’ll pop back in here once I’m done to share my thoughts.
But in the meantime, what do YOU think? Who is your favourite audiobook narrator? Do you have a fave series you can recommend? Please share — I’ll make a list!
More soon…
~kc