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By: Ben Aaronovitch & Andrew Cartmel
Publisher: Titan Comics
Here, dear readers, we find ourselves in another thrilling, tantalizing and comedic tale from the great Rivers of London series. As an American coming in with no background knowledge of this series, I must say as an avid reader that I was quite entertained by this volume. Let’s take a peek!
The story begins around stomping ground hoopla that is happening between highly self-assertive human-cat hybrids and talking foxes. (OK, you have my attention). Hoodette, an alias for a one Ms. Kitty Butchard, is sentenced to community service after making some extra wonga (I’m American, I find this slang for “money’ quite amusing) selling weed. How rude; especially considering it is for her sick Uncle. Back before she was caught, Hoodette made sure to get herself a lovely accountant by the name of Gina.
Whilst Kitty is doing community payback in a home for women she learns of Gina’s concern of a string of recent fox attacks on cats, especially because her cat, Perkins, is a bit of a wonderer. As Kitty tells Gina not to worry, upon taking a stroll along the dock, poor Perkins is found by a sassy fox. Fortunately for our feline friend, unbeknownst to the devious fox, a mysterious human-cat hybrid has been lying in wait to pounce on the fox. Good news for Perkins! The fox winds up drenched in the river, and Perkins is back in Gina’s lap – mysteriously purring back at the hybrid before she makes a fast exit.
As the fox is recouping from the watery adventure, we soon find him convening with another fox to bring in help. Human help. We encounter Abigail at a lesson for spells, whilst learning Latin. The foxes catch Abigail outside afterwards and tell her about the human-cat hybrid. Their conclusion to this conundrum: set up one of the foxes as the bait, upon which Abigail will capture the cat woman on photo.
On another note: Gina has shown Kitty the photo, thus inspiring Kitty to become Hoodette once again, unbeknownst to Abigail and company.
Kitty goes to visit her Uncle Jake, and we find out that all of her cannabis plants have been replaced with tomatoes (obviously they don’t make as much mongo, but necessity is indeed the mother of invention) and apparently the same incident that paralyzed her uncle also gave him the power to create a werelight. It attracts creatures who can sense magic. Bingo! This may be what has attracted our cat woman!
On this same night, both Abigail and Hoodette, along with the foxes, accidentally clash as they are trying to capture/photograph this newly discovered creature. Hoodette ends up in the river, and Abigail forgets to take her photo – but worry not! After licking her wounds, Kitty ends up back at the women’s shelter working, where the cat woman is waiting for her. It is from here that Kitty takes Stephanie – the cat woman – back to Gina’s to hear quite an interesting story.
With Abigail in tow (after being discovered by Kitty outside of the houseboat with Abigail’s fox friends) they learn the story of how Stephanie and the cat woman’s sisters were being held captive in a brothel! The brothel is organized by a London Gangster and his blind mother – who happens to have extreme superpowers.
For the sake of not retelling the whole story – I am going to leave you (hopefully) intrigued. What continues in this witty tale full of girl power, action, and magical bosses (as well as a fox’s penchant for cheese puffs) proves to provide chucklesome scenarios from beginning to end. I suggest that you check out this series. I’ll be checking more of these stories out myself.
I’d like to thank Titan Comics for the opportunity to read and give an honest review of their Rivers of London: Stray Cat Blues comic.