The October Man

Publisher's Summary

A brand-new stand-alone novella in the Rivers of London series!

Tobias Winter has been assigned to the Abteilung KDA - the Department for Complex and Unspecific Matters. 

Despite the intriguing department name, as Winter explains, dealing with the strange and the supernatural is 'actually 90 percent paperwork'. But this is a story about the other 10 percent of the job: the life-threatening danger part. 

This is a tale about the Queen of the Harvest, the October Man, and the little-known time the vineyard around Trier started to eat people.... 

Winter may be P. C. Peter Grant's German counterpart, but surviving this investigation is entirely down to him....

©2019 Ben Aaronovitch (P)2019 Orion Publishing Group

what a good surprise!

Out of the description I knew the plot would take place in Germany and I thought Peter Grant would have a trip there. I was a bit sad as I read that it wasn't Kobna Holdbrook-Smith reading the novella, I love his voice and couldn't imagine someone else reading a "Rivers of London" book. I was all wrong. First of all Peter is not coming to Germany, we meet a new apprentice, Tobias Winter. And the Rivers are…. well you'll have to listen by yourself. Sam Peter Jackson is the PERFECT reader for this book being English and German. Living in Germany myself it is so nice to hear the german words accentless spoken. He gave life to Tobias in such a convincing way that I missed Peter and Co only a very little bit. That was a wonderful trip to Trier and the Mosel. Dear Mr Ben Aaronovitch you need to be cloned, one of you must resume writing Peter Grant's stories, I want to see his child growing up. And the other one has to show us Tobias and Vanessa dealing with Vater Rhein and meeting the Elbe River ;-).

The German Peter Grant

It’s not Peter but Tobias has a similar voice.
The German folly has moved with the times and has a lot of paperwork, more likely to shoot centre mass than fireballs, genius loci distrusts them even more (with good reason!), it’s a good start to a new series.

Over all it was Enjoyable and I’m hoping there will eventually be cooperation between the Germans and Brit branches of the magical police.

Deutschlands Flüsse

First of all, kudos to the producers for finding a bilingual narrator for the new German protagonist. Someone who doesn't speak German well would have mangled all the names and expressions (I'm looking at you, Nicholas Guy Smith, in the Johannes Cabal stories).
Secondly, Ben Aaronovitch clearly put a lot of research into how the German police work, the localities and special terminology (I thought that Besondere Umstände for the special response unit was inspired). I wish more authors would do this when setting a book in a country that isn't their own.
We learn that The Folly isn't the only police force dealing with magic but there are equivalents in other parts of Europe, too, and a little about the history of Newtonian magic there.
I also really liked the story which unravels the mystery nicely as it is cranked up to the final confrontation.
More of Tobias, please, maybe he and Peter can solve a mystery together at some point?

9 of 9 people found this review helpful

Great expansion!

Great addition to the Riververs, well worth a listen can't wait to hear more from Peter Grant in the future.

9 of 10 people found this review helpful

A Perplexing Novella

This seems like a filler for the expansion of the Rivers of London; Peter Grant's off to Germany? Sadly I felt the main character was a little dull or maybe just 2 dimensional. (I think that German speakers may get more out of German Police procedural comments & observations). Not enough back story; but I suppose the story of the evolution of copper on the beat to enrolment in the magic police has already been done. Too short for all the plot developments and just as my interest was piquing the book finished. If you're already a fan of the series this is probably required reading/listening to, but I think if its your first foray into the series start with Rivers of London.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

LOVING THE 128K AUDIO

I was dubious to begin but it quickly becomes a highly entertaining instalment to the series.

Top debut by Sam Peter Jackson. Superbly narrated.

Sounds GREAT in the updated enhanced format.

8 of 10 people found this review helpful

Excellent narrator!

I initially thought that the German accent would grate on my ears, but it really didn’t at all. Instead, it added to the story. Excellent choice of narrator! Also, I absolutely love the language in these books; “egregious cliche embodiment” has quickly become a favourite expression of mine!

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Nice extention of the RoL world

Nice story, well narrated. Quite short but worth a go.

Some nay sayers are reviewing low because it's not Kobna Holbrook Smith narrating, but this is nonsense!

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

comes from nowhere-and goes nowhere.

I really liked the idea of moving the 'magic' to other counties and Tobias Winter seems a good place to start. But it's broken and inconsistent - no sort of story behind it until near the end but by then its all a bit late. I think its about wine, the grape harvest and water goddess'.
The humour is not there. I certainly wasn't expecting Peter Grant but this is like a story written by someone other than B.Aaronavich. It's dull and unexciting and I feel a trick has been missed. Winter is a bit boring to be honest - there is no explanation as to who he is or where he comes from. A writer experienced as BA could have woven that it - or maybe he did and I missed it. The narrator is fine - German accent without sounding like a joke but that is a sad plus overall. All in all I was very disappointed.

Very German and I liked it.

Wonderful book with a great story extending into the Rivers Of London Universe. Can’t wait for the next one.

Hard work

Good stand alone story (from the same universe but not featuring Peter Grant) but I did find the dry German accented narration hard work.

Disappointing

I was really excited to read a new extension to the series, was dubious about the Narrator at first as I just love Kobna so much but on balance he's alright. The real let down is the story... large passages of this feel like they're lifted straight out of the other books and then just bridged together with some "new bits" to make it feel like it's a new book when actually it's not. Hardly kept my attention and the only points my ear pricked was mentioned of Peter Grant, in the hopes we might get a cross over. Maybe that's where it's heading but this book just didn't feel like it had a personality of its own, just felt like it was a lazy re-hash of the other books.