Rivers of London (Rivers of London, #1)

by Ben Aaronovitch

When I’m considering this I find it helpful to quote the wisdom of my father, who once told me, ‘Who knows why the fuck anything happens?’

This is because nothing builds character like being abused, spat at and vomited on by members of the public.

He was from Yorkshire, or somewhere like that, and like many Northerners with issues, he’d moved to London as a cheap alternative to psychotherapy.

The voice belonged to a plump, round-faced white woman.

As a typical Londoner, Gurcan had a high tolerance threshold for random thoughtlessness; after all, if you live in the big city there’s no point complaining that it’s a big city, but even that tolerance has its limit and the name of that limit is ‘taking the piss’.

My dad once told me that the secret to a happy life was never to start something with a girl unless you were willing to follow wherever it led.

It’s a myth that Londoners are oblivious to one another on the tube: we’re hyper-aware of each other and are constantly revising our what-if scenarios and counter strategies.

A sudden attack of culture snobbery is a common affliction among policemen of a certain rank and age; it’s like a normal midlife crisis only with more chandeliers and foreign languages.