Rivers of London

Peter Grant is a probationary constable in London's Metropolitan Police, and he is on course for a desk job in the Case Progression Unit. Then a ghost gives him a witness statement at a Covent Garden murder scene, and his career goes somewhere else.

That statement brings him to the Folly, a small and secretive branch of the force that deals with magic. Its head is Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, the last officially sanctioned wizard in England, who takes Peter on as his apprentice. Peter has to learn the basics of magic while still doing a copper's job.

Two cases overlap. One is a run of shockingly violent attacks across London with no apparent motive. The other is an old territorial quarrel between Mama Thames and Father Thames, river gods who each claim the city's waterways.

The book mixes police procedural with urban fantasy. Peter is a working officer, so the investigations follow the routines of a police inquiry, with magic added to the toolkit. It is the first novel in the Peter Grant series, and it opens with a murder and a ghost, so the story is under way from the first scene.