Set in a post-Roman London, the story unfolds under the rule of King Scarabold, whose dysfunctional family battles for power while concealing dark secrets. Scarabold faces threats from both internal rivals and external foes, including eerie characters and warlike nuns. The arrival of Watborn, a mysterious birdcatcher, introduces a potential turning point amidst the chaos. As tensions rise and warriors gather, the fate of London hangs in the balance, leading to a gripping struggle for its very essence.
An enthralling anthology of 20 CWA Dagger Award-shortlisted gripping and
thrilling stories for the most hardened crime fan. Featuring bestselling
authors such as Neil Gaiman, Ann Cleeves, Christopher Fowler and Val McDermid.
In a picturesque villa in France, maid Hannah Carreras observes the lives of the guests while remaining silent. When Summer, the mistress, goes missing after her lover Steve arrives with his family, secrets unravel. As the police investigate, Hannah holds the key to the truth she witnessed, including blood and broken glass.
As the nation's oldest serving detectives, we know more about London than almost anyone. After all, we've been walking its streets and impulsively arresting its citizens for decades. Who better to take you through its less savoury side? We'll be chatting about odd buildings, odder characters, lost venues, forgotten disasters, confusing routes, dubious gossip, illicit pleasures and hidden pubs. We'll be making all sorts of odd connections and showing you why it's almost impossible to separate fact from fiction in London. With the help of some of our more disreputable friends, each an argumentative and unreliable expert in his or her own dodgy field, we'll explain why some streets have genders, why only two Londoners got to meet Dracula, how a department store and a prison played tricks on your mind, when a theatre got stranded in the past, how a building vanished in plain sight, what excited Charlotte Bronte about the city and where the devils hide in London. We hope to capture something of the city's restless spirit by shamelessly and wilfully wandering off course. It goes without saying that we'll bluff and bamboozle you along the way but that's all part of the fun. History is what you remember. London is what you forget (and we've forgotten a lot). So please do join us on this magical mystery tour of our city. Who knows where we'll end up?
Detectives Arthur Bryant and John May delve into the mysterious death of ninety-one-year-old Alice Hoffman, a former government security expert. Initially deemed an accident, their investigation reveals her ties to a diplomat and hints at a larger conspiracy involving a group of skilled women. As they navigate London's hidden corners, the duo uncovers a web of deception that challenges their assumptions. This case marks a pivotal moment for the Peculiar Crimes Unit, intertwining past and present in a thrilling exploration of international intrigue.
It was the kind of story that barely made the news.When 91-year-old Amelia Hoffman died in her top-floor flat on a busy London road, it's considered an example of what has gone wrong with modern society: she slipped through the cracks in a failing system.But detectives Arthur Bryant and John May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit have their doubts. Mrs Hoffman was once a government security expert, even though no one can quite remember her. When a link emerges between the old lady and a diplomat trying to flee the country, it seems that an impossible murder has been committed.Mrs Hoffman wasn't the only one at risk. Bryant is convinced that other forgotten women with hidden talents are also in danger. And, curiously, they all own models of London Bridge.With the help of some of their more certifiable informants, the detectives follow the strangest of clues in an investigation that will lead them through forgotten alleyways to the city's oldest bridge in search of a desperate killer.But just when the case appears to be solved, they discover that Mrs Hoffman was smarter than anyone imagined. There's a bigger game afoot that could have terrible consequences. It's time to celebrate Bryant and May's twentieth anniversary as their most lunatic case yet brings death and rebirth to London's most peculiar crimes unit.
"When a prominent politician is crushed by a fruit van making a delivery, the singular team of Arthur Bryant and John May overcome insurmountable odds to reunite the PCU and solve the case in the brainy new mystery from acclaimed author Christopher Fowler. On a spring morning in London's Strand, the Speaker of the House of Commons is nearly killed by a van unloading oranges and lemons for the annual St. Clement Danes festival. It's an absurd near-death experience, but the government is more interested in investigating the Speaker's state of mind just prior to his accident. The task is given to the Peculiar Crimes Unit--the only problem being that the unit no longer exists. Its Chief, Raymond Land, is tending his daffodils on the Isle of Wight and senior detectives Arthur Bryant and John May are out of commission; May is undergoing surgery for a bullet wound and Bryant has been missing for a month. What's more, the old unit in King's Cross is being turned into a vegetarian tapas bar. Against impossible odds, the team is reassembled and once again what should have been a simple case becomes a lunatic farrago involving arson, suicide, magicians, academics and a race to catch a killer with a master plan involving London churches. Joining their team this time is Sidney, a young woman with no previous experience, plenty of attitude--and a surprising secret"--
"The Peculiar Crimes Unit has solved many extraordinary cases over the years, but some were hushed up and hidden away. Until now. Arthur Bryant remembers these lost cases as if they were yesterday. Unfortunately, he doesn't remember yesterday, so the newly revealed facts could come as a surprise to everyone, including his exasperated partner John May.Here, then, is the truth about the Covent Garden opera diva and the seventh reindeer, the body that falls from the Tate Gallery, the ordinary London street corner where strange accidents keep occurring, the consul's son discovered buried in the unit's basement, the corpse pulled from a swamp of Chinese dinners, a Hallowe'en crime in the Post Office Tower, and the impossible death that's the fault of a forgotten London legend. All of the unit's oddest characters are here, plus the detectives' long-suffering sergeant Janice Longbright gets to reveal her own forgotten mystery.These twelve crimes must be solved without the help of modern technology, mainly because nobody knows how to use it. Expect misunderstood clues, lost evidence, arguments about Dickens, churches, pubs and disorderly conduct from the investigative officers they laughingly call 'England's Finest'!"--Publisher description
In Which Mr May Makes A Mistake And Mr Bryant Goes Into The Dark Three deaths, seemingly unconnected but for one thing- each happened at precisely four a.m. - the lonely hour . . . At four in the morning outside a run-down nightclub in the wrong part of London, four strangers meet for the first time. A few weeks later a body is found on Hampstead Heath, hanging upside down and surrounded by the paraphernalia of black magic. Then a young man is killed on a London bridge and a woman is attacked in her modern (and secure) luxury apartment. To catch this killer, Bryant and May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit switch to working nights. While John May takes a technological approach, Arthur Bryant calls upon sundry eccentrics and misfits for help solving what seems an impossible case. But impossible is what the PCU does best. As they draw back the curtain on a city at night, Bryant and May follow a trail of murder, arson, blackmail, kidnap, loneliness and . . . bats. 'The most consistently brilliant, entertaining and educational voice in contemporary British crime fiction' CATHI UNSWORTH 'One of our most unorthodox and entertaining writers' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'I love the wit and playfulness of the Bryant & May books' ANNE CLEEVES
