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I was very lucky to get tickets for the Ben Aaronovitch event at the Waterstones on Trafalgar Square yesterday evening to celebrate the publication of his new Peter Grant novel Foxglove Summer. Ben was accompanied by the actor who narrates the audiobook versions, Kobna Holbrook Smith, who read a short passage before we went into a lively and informative Q&A session.

Main things I learned from a hugely entertaining event were:

• potentially a film or TV adaptation (in very early pre-development)
• (cover your eyes if you haven’t read Broken Homes) he knew the Lesley thing had to happen from the very first book
• he will keep writing them until he runs out of ideas, people stop buying them or he can afford a yacht (some thoughts n the fact that it’s running costs not purchase price that’s expensive about a yacht, and also he means a proper Russian oligarch type yacht)
• as well as “what if there was a bit of the Met police that handled magic”, one of his other formative ideas was “what if Hogwarts had been a comprehensive”
• he would see doing Dr Who again as a backward step
• he recommends the work of Jasper Fforde and Phil Rickman (pleased about both of them)

A little bit of excitement for me (apart from simply getting the book signed of course) was that while waiting (patiently like a proper brought up British person) I was asked by his publicist if I would be filmed saying a few words about how I’d found out about his books (shout out to Silvery Dude) and had I recommended them to anyone (shout out to MargaRita Queen of Speed who was there with me). Great fun, lovely to be able to share my enthusiasm.

And there was wine!

And of course I started reading the thing as soon as I got home so watch this space for a review (so far so excellent)