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Summary
Summary
The Peculiar Crimes Unit is no more. After years of defying the odds and infuriating their embarrassed superiors, detectives Arthur Bryant and John May have at last crossed the line. This is the twenty-first century and not even their eccentric genius or phenomenal success rate solving London's most unusual crimes can save them. While Bryant takes to his bed, his bathrobe, and his esoteric books, the rest of the team take to the streets looking for new careers--leading one of them to stumble upon a gruesome murder.
It isn't so much the discovery of the headless corpse that's potentially so politically explosive as where it's found. Still it takes the bizarre sightings of a great horned creature--half man, half stag--carrying off young women to convince Bryant that this is a case worth getting dressed and leaving the house to solve. The Home Office has reluctantly authorized the PCU to reunite for one last encore performance--in a rented office with no computer network, no legal authority, and a broken toilet. They've got until the end of the week to solve a murder with unlikely links to gangland crime, Slavic mythology, the 2012 London Olympics, and the sort of corruption only obscene amounts of money and power can buy.
It's the kind of case that Bryant and May live to solve--and it could be just the case that kills them.
Author Notes
Christopher Fowler was born in Greenwich, London, England in 1953. He died on March 3, 2023. Fowler was the author of the Bryant and May Mystery series, Rune, and Old Devil Moon, which won the Edge Hill Audience Prize in 2008. He also won the British Fantasy Society Award for best novella for Breathe in 2005. He also won The Dagger in the Library Award 2015 for his body of work.
Fowler was diagnosed with cancer in March 2020, which he announced on his blog the following April. He died in London on 3 March 2023, at the age of 69.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Fowler's unique blend of the comic and the grotesque is on full display in his excellent seventh Peculiar Crimes Unit mystery (after 2008's The Victoria Vanishes). With the special police unit shut down, Arthur Bryant is feeling withdrawn and depressed while his partner, John May, is considering PI work. When a former team member stumbles on a beheaded corpse in the heart of London's King's Cross neighborhood, May artfully uses the discovery to gain the PCU another lease on life. He persuades the higherups that unsolved gang crimes in the area could threaten the economic benefit anticipated from the 2012 Olympics. Given one week to solve the case, without any official sanction or access to police resources, May pulls Bryant out of his doldrums and reassembles the unit. To May's dismay, his colleague is more interested in reports that a man wearing a stag's head has been seen in the area. The pacing, prose, planting of clues and characterizations are all top-notch. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Locked out and disbanded at the end of The Victoria Vanishes (2008), London's Peculiar Crimes Unit comes back from the grave to solve yet another bizarre case. Urban planners have brought exciting new developments to the dicey neighborhood of King's Cross. One is a man wearing a stag's head who's frightening and perhaps abducting passersby. Another is the headless corpse in the freezer of a building that's the new home of the Paradise Chip Shop. The threat of negative publicity for the showcase project is so great that Oskar Kasavian and Leslie Faraday, sworn enemies of the PCU, agree to reconstitute it on an ad hoc basis"no equipment, no money, no offices, no status, no technical backup, nothing"if its members can solve the mystery before public confidence is undermined. Although equable John May is eager to go back to work, crusty Arthur Bryant, his fellow chief detective, is less interested in the murder than the stag-head man. Armed with his customary knowledge of all human endeavor, Bryant soon traces the apparent prankster's roots to the mythological Green Man, who "wants to reclaim the ancient woodlands" from the encroachments of railways and urban development. But the unit's investigation of the Albert Dock Architectural Partnership Trust (ADAPT) and its adversaries will lead them off on many tangents before the curtain comes crashing ambiguously down. Neither the mystery nor the solution is up to Fowler's best work. But the reunion of the PCU is cause for such joy that only the most curmudgeonly fans will quibble. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The efforts of various officials in the London police have finally succeeded in breaking up the Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU). While most of the team have started remaking their lives, brilliant, eccentric Arthur Bryant has become a morose recluse. His old friend John May is definitely concerned. Then along comes a case that May thinks might pique Arthur's interest and put the unit back in business: a headless corpse is found stuffed in an old freezer. Strangely, it's not the unfortunate dead guy that calls to the elderly Bryant. He's more interested in the oddly dressed man causing havoc around a King's Cross renovation project. With the group's future at stake, which case will win out? With a liberal dose of regional history and some surprising humor, this ensemble crime story has lots to offer not the least of which are a couple of great, unexpected twists that not only change the makeup of the PCU but also lead its members straight into adventures to come.--Zvirin, Stephanie Copyright 2009 Booklist
Library Journal Review
London's Peculiar Crimes Unit, disbanded after solving the affair in The Victoria Vanishes, is in disarray. Some team members have found jobs, others are looking for work, and Bryant is wasting away. Then a headless corpse is found in a freezer in a store in the King's Cross area. There is only one crime team capable of solving the bizarre murders that follow--the Peculiar Crimes Unit swings into action. The trail twists and doubles back on itself, and the elderly Bryant and May bicker, but in the end they must acknowledge that they have met another übercriminal. VERDICT It's apparent that after seven Bryant and May titles, Fowler is working his way through the odd and peculiar bits of London history. No one does this better than Fowler, with the possible exception of Peter Ackroyd. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 7/09.] (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.