‘This is all forbidden knowledge that was not supposed to be kept,’ I said. ‘Too much risk that other countries will know we kept it.’ [loc. 572]
In which the 'Rivers of London' milieu expands to include Germany, where Tobias Winter is working for the Abteilung KDA, the “Complex and Diffuse Matters” department of the federal police. Unlike Peter Grant in the London novels, Tobi is already an established practitioner, and his liaison (Detective Vanessa Sommer) is the wide-eyed innocent with the Harry Potter jokes.
I didn't find the plot or cast of this novella as immediately engaging as Rivers of London: Tobi is more reserved than Peter Grant, his Director is a shadowy figure, and Detective Sommer, while suitably wowed by the revelation that magic is real, didn't get to do much other than provide information about the wine-growing industry. (The crime under investigation is very definitely wine-related, though the plot became more convoluted as the story progressed.)
More interesting to me was the Research Department, which has 'several tonnes' of pre-war documentation in filing cabinets: it's deemed too dangerous to transfer to microfiche, let alone a proper database. That means that the German 'magic police' have greater resources than their counterparts in other countries: and it is also clear that Tobi's boss has been keeping an eye on Nightingale, the Rivers, and Peter Grant.
Not a bad read, but not as enjoyable for me as the main canon. And of course there was added piquancy, and sadness, at reading about European policing -- European lives -- on the eve of Brexit.
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