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  • London Falling

  • The Shadow Police, Book One
  • By: Paul Cornell
  • Narrated by: Damian Lynch
  • Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (82 ratings)

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London Falling cover art

London Falling

By: Paul Cornell
Narrated by: Damian Lynch
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Publisher's Summary

The dark is rising....

Detective Inspector James Quill is about to complete the drugs bust of his career. Then his prize suspect, Rob Toshack, is murdered in custody. Furious, Quill pursues the investigation, co-opting intelligence analyst Lisa Ross and undercover cops Costain and Sefton. But nothing about Toshack’s murder is normal.

Toshack had struck a bargain with a vindictive entity, whose occult powers kept Toshack one step ahead of the law - until his luck ran out. Now, the team must find a 'suspect' who can bend space and time and alter memory itself. And they will kill again.

As the group starts to see London’s sinister magic for themselves, they have two choices: panic or use their new abilities. Then they must hunt a terrifying supernatural force the only way they know how: using police methods, equipment, and tactics. But they must all learn the rules of this new game - and quickly. More than their lives will depend on it.

Paul Cornell has written some of Doctor Who's best-loved episodes for the BBC. He has also written on a number of comic book series for Marvel and DC, including X-Men and Batman and Robin. He has been Hugo Award nominated for his work in TV, comics, and prose, and won the BSFA award for his short fiction. London Falling is his first urban fantasy novel.

©2013 Paul Cornell (P)2014 Audible Studios

Critic Reviews

"He's gone and written a novel too! I suspect it will be just as good as everything else he's written, and that's not fair at all." (George R R Martin)

What listeners say about London Falling

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Loved it!

It took a while to understand the roles of the team as I was only half paying attention at the start and the names were so confusing... Costan, Sefton, toshack, quill... I couldn't work out who was the main character... Soon I realised there wasn't one, but four!

I loved the depth that added to the story. However sometimes it was easy to get lost as to what character he was talking about as the narrator sometimes as it changes quickly between the four characters.

Overall I loved it though!!

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Not For Mums of Small Children

I just can't get past the torture of the children in this story. If you can comfortably handle hearing how small children are snatched and tortured to death, go for it. I gave it a good go, but struggled to really like any of the characters or the writing style enough to overcome the horrible feeling it left in my mouth.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Evil in London

I wasn’t sure what to make of this story when it began, it took a while to get into the book, but I liked it when I did. I’ve not long gotten into urban fantasy and I like the London police theme.
I enjoyed the way the story swapped from character to character as it unfolded. You found out about the back story of each character when a significant event occurred. Viewing events from the eyes of everyone’s who experienced it was unique.
The story had a satisfying ending and also left an opening for the next story in the series.
The reader had a pleasant voice and made good use of his voice. I would have liked him to follow the punctuation closely and taken a break when a full stop appeared. Sometimes it took a few seconds to recognise a change of sentence or paragraph.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great fantasy realism

I really enjoyed this story, while I appreciate the parallels to Rivers of London, I think this is a bit grittier, and more crime/police procedural orientated as compared to ROL which is all about the personalities and interpersonal interactions. I also thought that the story here was great, and the “magic” is far more believable than ROL, which is to say both draw from the same recipe book and end up cooking completely different meals. This is steak while ROL is pudding.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Fans of Ben Aaronavich

If you like the Rivers of London series you will love this series, it's gritty and dark, with a not too unbelievable take on magic on the streets of London. The series brings some real life people we love into the books as characters and the inclusion of real events we all know gets the storyline into your head as if you are part of it.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

great listen

great listen, well told story no boring bits. lots of action can't wait for the next book

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Slow start but then awesome.

Took me a few chapters to get into this but turned into a great story.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great story, but requires concentration

It took me a while to get used to the story swapping across the main characters. There needs to be a distinct pause when the book switches characters, or a change to accent, or something to signify a change of character perspective. Once I got used to this I loved the story line!

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Engrossing

Slow for the first few chapters. I wasn't sure if it was my kind of book for a while. Then everything changed and I was hooked. "London Falling" reminded me of "The Rivers of London", which I loved, but it is much grittier. The characters were realistic and the storyline was brilliant. I can hardly wait for Book 2.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic

Was referred this series by Rivers of London fans , it’s as good if not better...

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