Rivers of London Volume 5: Cry Fox

Having read everything else in the Rivers of London series, I decided to try this as a random sample of the series in comic format. These are sometimes described as ‘graphic novels’, although they’re much shorter than novels, and might be more accurately described as illustrated short stories.

I’m not a big reader of comics, but I have read some in the past, and I find that I can cope with Rivers of London in comic format. The illustrations of the characters are mostly tolerable, although some are better than others. Molly is a difficult one to draw; I’m not sure exactly what she should look like, but I don’t think the attempt here is a success.

My main criticism is of the story itself, which strikes me as different in kind and below the usual standard of stories in this series. It reminds me vaguely of the old Avengers TV series from the 1960s (which I’m old enough to remember), but without the light-heartedness that was the main attraction of that series.

Of course it would be difficult to cram a good story into this abbreviated format; but stories of any length can be made to work if you have the knack of it. This story seems to me too formulaic, it’s story-writing by numbers, it lacks inspiration. The villain and his dastardly plot are corny.

I wouldn’t say this was a particularly bad experience, but I don’t feel encouraged to read more of these comics.