The Rivers of London series of graphic novels turn the speedometer up with volume 8 – The Fey and The Furious. You guessed it: it’s The Fast and The Furious mixed with faeries, a clever mash-up by the usual team of creator Ben Aaronovitch with co-writer Andrew Cartmel. Moving into pole position on art duties this time around is Argentinian Mariano Laclaustra, fresh from Titan Comics’ final Twelfth Doctor comics.
Magical copper Peter Grant is on the hunt for illegal street racers, but his job is made all the more complicated by the fact that, while the starting line is in London, the race goes on a bit of an unexpected detour… to fairyland. It’s been a while since Peter was in fairyland – the fifth novel, 2014’s Foxglove Summer, saw Peter discover the world of the faeries for the first time, but you don’t need to know anything more than that. As we’ve said before, these graphic novels are standalone stories, but you will get more out of them if you start at the beginning of the series.
The simpler colouring on the art in the fairyland sequences cleverly contrasts with the heavier colouring in the ‘real world’. It’s a nice touch which helps to give Laclaustra’s clear and uncomplicated art a bit of a push. Indeed, the storyline itself could also be described as uncomplicated, with several pages of cars driving, speed lines giving the sense of manga-style kinetic energy. This leaves room in the story for some great Wacky Races villains to make their presence felt!
The Fey and The Furious is another solid entry in the Rivers of London graphic novel series, but anyone coming to this straight from the more in-depth novels could be a little disappointed.