“Midnight Riot” (Ballantine Del Rey, $7.99, 298 pages) and “Moon over Soho” (Ballantine Del Rey, $7.99, 288 pages) are a pair of witty, entertaining romps through a modern-day London that has a very active underground of gods, goddesses, demons, nymphs and the other usual suspects.

The hero is Peter Grant, an apprentice policeman in London (which is described in great detail throughout the book, so those who are familiar with the city will get even more out of the books), and he finds himself in the midst of murder investigations that get more and more complex the deeper he and his superior dig into them.

There’s magic and, of course, plenty of bloody violence, some romance and Ben Aaronovitch’s solid grasp on the voice of his protagonist and the keep-it-moving cleverness necessary for books like this to work. It’s not all strawberries and cream, though, which adds a little substance to what looks like a series that will be worth keeping up on.

Sure, it’s frothy, but it’s fun – and in too many books of this style, there’s not enough fun to go around.