Moon Over Soho (Rivers of London #2)

by Ben Aaronovitch

My dad always said that a trumpet player likes to aim his weapon at the audience, but a sax man likes to cut a good profile

the first rule about a black woman’s hair is you don’t talk about a black woman’s hair. And the second rule is you don’t ever touch a black woman’s hair without getting written permission first. And that includes after sex, marriage, or death for that matter.

“We’re the jazz police,” said James. “ ’He’s the jazz police,” said Max, meaning me I suppose. “We’re more like the Old Compton Street irregulars.”

There’s no such thing as a full-service forensics team. It’s very expensive, so you order bits of it up from the Home Office like a Chinese takeout.

Toby sat on his haunches by the table and gave me the alert stare of a dog who was ready for any meaty comestible that life might throw him.

BLACK MAGIC, as defined by Nightingale, was the use of magic in such a way as to cause breach of the peace.

“There’s more to life than just London,” said Nightingale. “People keep saying that,” I said. “But I’ve never actually seen any proof.”

When all the map was red, I thought. When every boy expected his own adventure and girls had not yet been invented.

Some people would call me a black magician.”

my rule of thumb is if they don’t physically flinch from touching you, then eventually they’ll make the adjustment.

When you’re a boy your life can be measured out as a series of uncomfortable conversations reluctantly initiated by adults in an effort to tell you things that you either already know or really don’t want to know.

The Goddess of the River will proudly tell you that the Thames is officially the cleanest industrial river in Europe, but it is not so clean that you want to drink it.

Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, I thought. For they are soggy and hard to light.

People like to forget any bad things that someone did and why should they remember? It’s not like they’re going to do it again.

She wore a black Chanel skirt suit that, had it been a car, would have done zero to sixty in less than 3.8 seconds.

I’m an old-fashioned copper—I don’t believe in breaking the laws of thermodynamics.

One thing for certain, Abigail who lived up the road was going on my watch list. In fact I was going to create a watch list just so I could put Abigail at the top of

It was the single most stupid thing I’ve ever done, and that includes running into a tower block thirty seconds before it was due to be demolished.

It’s no fun looking down on people if you can’t let them know you’re above them.

For a terrifying moment I thought he was going to hug me, but fortunately we both remembered we were English just in time. Still, it was a close call.

“There are some hideous things out there that can talk and reason and I wonder if you would be quite so quick to rush to their defense.” “Maybe not,” I said. “But that just makes me shallow, it doesn’t make me wrong.”

“You can’t just off someone because it’s more convenient,” I said. “What did all your friends die for, all those names on the wall, what did they die for if not for that?”

I decided to invent some rules just so I could add a new rule to the rules: Never diss somebody’s mum, never play chess with the Kurdish mafia, and never lie down with a woman who’s more magical than you are.