The Night Raven (Crow Investigations #1) by Sarah Painter

Why had nobody warned her that being a private investigator was zero glamour, ninety-nine per cent boredom and one per cent fear-for-your-life?

I was in the mood for something but I couldn’t figure out what it was, then this book popped up in a ‘for you’ recommendation somewhere and now I’m hooked! I devoured this book!

It’s got all the things I love in my magical realism! It’s fast paced, has characters I want to get to know better and a magic system that has me very intrigued!

Now, this is so fast paced that it does feel a little like there is more show than tell at times, but there are eight books in this series so I feel like (hope) that we will get more answers and a little more character depth as we continue on!

Lydia is the kind of heroine I enjoy, she is fiercely independent but not too stupid to look for help when she needs it and there is definitely something up with her magic, or the lack of, and I can’t wait to find out all of her mysteries. I feel like her flight from Aberdeen might not be as clear cut as we think either! I suspect uncle Charlie might have been plotting from London! 

The magic system hasn’t really been explored yet but I love that the magic belongs to what is basically crime families, think The Kray Twins on magic! The Crows, The Foxes, The Pearls, and The Silvers. 

Crow magic isn’t clearly stated just yet but Lydia believes them to be the most powerful family in London.

The Foxes: Lydia also doesn’t go into what they can do, she tells us the “less said about them the better.” We later learn about Paul Fox and I’ll hazard a guess as to him being to blame for her reluctance to discuss them. Paul is a bit of a dick and I kind of like him! 🙈

The Pearls: have “a facility for selling. They were the original entrepreneurs and their ancestors had run apple carts and bakeries, and had been the first to sell ice cream in the Victorian era and to make money by cutting their flour with dust. Never mind coals to Newcastle, the Pearls could sell shoes to a duck.”

The Silvers: have “a facility for lying and, unsurprisingly, ran a thriving law firm…”

Lydia has a kind of love interest, DCI Fleet. I think this is where the fast pace of the story lets the book down just a little. Lydia and Fleets ‘relationship’ kind of came out of nowhere, I mean sure, sometimes people just connect and have sex without knowing anything about each other, but it kind of feels out of character for both of them, maybe it’s because the sex was closed door? I just don’t feel like there was a connection and it was disappointing. Perhaps they aren’t endgame and their sexual relationship isn’t something the reader needs to think about too much though? Having some kind of connection would have been nice, I had to go back and check that the ‘a woman who had recently had head-banging sex.’ actually meant she had and Fleet had sex. It’s probably too long since I’ve read a closed door though so maybe that’s on me! 😂

I can’t wait to get stuck into the rest of this series though. Very entertaining!

Synopsis:

Meet Lydia Crow…

Lydia has always known she has no power, especially next to her infamous and more-than-slightly dodgy family. Which is why she carved her own life as a private investigator far away from London.

When a professional snafu forces her home, the head of the family calls in a favour, and Lydia finds herself investigating the disappearance of her cousin, Maddie.

Soon, Lydia is neck-deep in problems: her new flatmate is a homicidal ghost, the intriguing, but forbidden, DCI Fleet is acting in a distinctly unprofessional manner, and tensions between the old magical families are rising.

The Crows used to rule the roost and rumours claim they are still the strongest.

The Silvers have a facility for lying and they run the finest law firm in London.

The Pearl family were costermongers and everybody knows that a Pearlie can sell feathers to a bird.

The Fox family… Well. The less said about the Fox family the better.

For seventy-five years, a truce between the four families has held strong, but could the disappearance of Maddie Crow be the thing to break it?

The Night Raven is the first book in Crow Investigations, an exciting new paranormal mystery series from bestselling author of magical fiction, Sarah Painter.