Edgy, suspenseful, and darkly comic, here is the first novel in a riveting new mystery series starring two cranky but brilliant old detectives whose lifelong friendship was forged solving crimes for the London Police Department's Peculiar Crimes Unit. In Full Dark House, Christopher Fowler tells the story of both their first and last case—and how along the way the unlikely pair of crime fighters changed the face of detection. A present-day bombing rips through London and claims the life of eighty-year-old detective Arthur Bryant. For his partner John May, it means the end of a partnership that lasted over half-a-century and an eerie echo back to the Blitz of World War II when they first met. Desperately searching for clues to the killer's identity, May finds his old friend's notes of their very first case and becomes convinced that the past has returned...with a killing vengeance. It begins when a dancer in a risque new production of Orpheus in Hell is found without her feet. Suddenly, the young detectives are plunged in a bizarre gothic mystery that will push them to their limits—and beyond. For in a city shaken by war, a faceless killer is stalking London's theaters, creating his own kind of sinister drama. And it will take Arthur Bryant's unorthodox techniques and John May's dogged police work to catch a criminal whose ability to escape detection seems almost supernatural—a murderer who even decades later seems to have claimed the life of one of them...and is ready to claim the other. Filled with startling twists, unforgettable characters, and a mystery that will keep you guessing, Full Dark House is a witty, heartbreaking, and all-too-human thriller about the hunt for an inhuman killer.

They are detection’s oddest couple: two cranky detectives whose professional partnership dates back half a century. Now Arthur Bryant and John May return in a case of multiple murder that twists through a subterranean course of the secrets, lies, and extreme passions that drive even ordinary men and women to the most shocking crimes…. They are living legends with a reputation for solving even the trickiest cases using unorthodox, unconventional, and often completely unauthorized methods. But the Peculiar Crimes Unit headed by Detectives John May and Arthur Bryant is one mistake away from being shut down for good. And when the elderly sister of Bryant’s friend is found dead in the basement of her decrepit house in Kentish Town, they find themselves on the verge of making exactly that mistake. According to the coroner, Ruth Singh’s heart simply stopped beating. But why was a woman who rarely left the house fully dressed for an outing? And why was there river water in her throat? Convinced that the old lady didn’t die a natural death, the detectives delve into a murky case with no apparent motive, no forensics, and no clues. And they’ve barely launched their investigation when death claims another victim. Suddenly they discover some very unnatural behavior surrounding Ruth Singh’s death by “natural” causes—from shady real estate developers and racist threats to two troubled marriages, from a dodgy academician working London’s notorious “grey economy” to a network of antiquities collectors obsessed with Egyptian mythology. And running beneath it all are the sweeping tentacles of London’s vast and forgotten underground river system. As the rains pour down and the water rises, Bryant and May must rely on instinct, experience, and their own very peculiar methods to stem a tide of evil that threatens to drown them all. From the Hardcover edition.

The odd couple of detection—the brilliant but cranky detectives of London's Peculiar Crimes Unit—return in a tense, atmospheric new thriller that keeps you guessing until the final page. This time Bryant and May are up against a series of bizarre murders that defy human understanding—and a killer no human hand may be able to stop. A mysterious stranger in outlandish Edwardian garb defaces a painting in the National Gallery. Then a guest at the exclusive Savoy Hotel is fatally bitten by what appears to be a marshland snake. An outbreak of increasingly bizarre crimes has hit London—and, fittingly, come to the attention of the Peculiar Crimes Unit. Art vandalism, an exploding suspect, pornography, rat poison, Gilbert and Sullivan musicals, secret societies...and not a single suspect in sight. The killer they're chasing has a dark history, a habit of staying hidden, and time itself on his side. Detectives John May and Arthur Bryant may have finally met their match, and this time they're really working against the clock...

It’s a crime tailor-made for the Peculiar Crimes Unit: a controversial artist is murdered and displayed as part of her own outrageous installation. No suspects, no motive, no evidence–it’s business as usual for the Unit’s cantankerous founding partners, Arthur Bryant and John May. But this time they have an eyewitness. According to twelve-year-old Luke Tripp, the killer was a cape-clad highwayman atop a black stallion. As implausible as the boy’s story sounds, Bryant and May take it seriously when “The Highwayman” is spotted again, striking a dramatic pose at the scene of his next outlandish murder. Whatever the killer’s real identity, he seems intent on killing off a string of minor celebrities while becoming one himself. As the tabloids look to make a quick bundle on “Highwayman Fever,” Bryant and May, along with the newest member of the Unit, May’s agoraphobic granddaughter, April, find themselves sorting out a case involving an unlikely combination of artistic rivalries, sleazy sex affairs, the Knights Templars, and street gang feuds. To do it, they’re going to have to use every orthodox–and unorthodox–means at their disposal, including myth, witchcraft, and the psychogeographic history of the city’s “monsters,” past and present. And if one unsolvable crime weren’t enough, this case has disturbing links to a decades-old killing spree that nearly destroyed the partnership of Bryant and May once before…and may again. The Peculiar Crimes Unit is one murder away from being closed down for good–and that murder could be their own. From the Hardcover edition.

From using crackpot psychics to cutting-edge forensics, Arthur Bryant and John May are famous for their maddeningly unorthodox approach to solving crimes that the ordinary police cannot. Now Christopher Fowler, “a new master of the classical detective story,”\* brings back crime detection’s oddest—and oldest—couple to solve the ultimate locked room mystery. It’s an “impossible” crime—a member of the Peculiar Crimes Unit killed inside a locked autopsy room populated only by the dead and to which only four PCU members had a key. And to make matters worse, the Unit has been shut down for a forced “vacation” and Bryant and May are stuck in a van miles away in the Dartmoor countryside during a freak snowstorm on their way to a convention of psychics. Now, with Sergeant Janice Longbright in charge at headquarters, Bryant and May must crack the case by cell phone while trying to stop a second murder without freezing to death. For among the line of snowed-in vehicles, a killer is on the prowl, a beautiful woman is on the run from a man who seeks either redemption or another victim, and an innocent child is caught in the middle. Weaving together two electrifying cases, White Corridor is an unforgettable triumph—by turns hilarious and harrowing—as two of detective fiction’s most marvelous characters confront one of human nature’s darkest mysteries: the ability to deceive, deny, and destroy. From the Hardcover edition.

1st UK ed. DJ is fine.

Long regarded an anachronism and a thorn in the side of its superiors, the Peculiar Crimes Unit is to be disbanded. For octogenarian detectives Arthur Bryant and John May, it seems retirement is now the only option. But then a headless body is found in a freezer, and on the perimeter of a massive construction site near King's Cross, a gigantic figure has been spotted - dressed in deerskin and sporting antlers made of knives and suddenly, with limited resources and very little time, the PCU are back in business. In the panoply of great fictional detective duos, Bryant & May rank alongside (and somewhere in between) Holmes & Watson and Mulder & Scully.

Early on an unseasonably warm Christmas Eve, Arthur Bryant of the Met's Peculiar Crimes Unit is summoned by the Home Office to attend a crime scene. Later that morning, he meets his colleague John May at a bus stop near Marble Arch. At Bryant's insistence, the two elderly detectives board an open-top tourist bus where he explains that they are in pursuit of the individual who strangled a 54 year-old cleaning lady in her flat the night before. As the old Routemaster trundles past some of London's iconic tourist sights - Oxford Circus, Regent Street, Nelson's Column, Whitehall, the palace of Westminster and even New Scotland Yard (a journey during which Arthur Bryant succeeds in upsetting both his fellow passengers and the tour guide) it becomes clear why the two policemen should have been called upon to investigate such a 'normal' murder. Because, of course, nothing is ever quite that straightforward when Bryant and May are on the case . . . This short story is part of the Storycuts series.

Christopher Fowler’s Peculiar Crimes Unit novels have been hailed for their originality, suspense, and unforgettable characters. Now Arthur Bryant, John May, and their team of proud eccentrics have been given only one week to hunt down a murderer they’ve already caught once and who is now luring them down into the darkest shadows of the London Underground. The young man they seek is an enigma. His identity is false. His links to society are invisible. A search of his home yields no clues. The Peculiar Crimes Unit knows only this: Somehow Mr. Fox got out of a locked room and killed one of their best and brightest. Facing a shutdown, Bryant and May learn that their man, expertly disguised, has struck again in the world’s oldest subway system. But as their search takes them into the vast labyrinth of tunnels that tie the city together, they discover a fresh mystery as bizarre as anything they have ever faced... As the city blithely goes about its way, as tales of ghost stations and Underground legends emerge, Bryant and May, men of opposite methods, are each getting closer to what lies hidden at the heart of London’s celebrated Tube and to the madness that is driving their man to murder. Sophisticated, fast-paced, and confounding until its final twist, Bryant & May Off the Rails is Christopher Fowler dead on track and at the height of his power to beguile, bewitch, and entertain.

On a rainswept London night, the wealthy unscrupulous Robert Kramer hosts a party in his penthouse just off Trafalgar Square. But something is wrong. The atmosphere is uncomfortable, the guests are on edge. And when Kramer's new young wife goes to check on their baby boy, she finds the nursery door locked from the inside. Breaking in, the Kramers are faced with an open window, an empty cot, and a grotesque antique puppet of Mr Punch lying on the floor. It seems that young Noah Kramer was thrown from the building, but the child was strangled, and the marks of the puppet's hands are clearly on his throat...what's more, there was a witness. It's a perfect case for the Peculiar Crimes Unit. As John May and his team interrogate the guests, Arthur Bryant heads into the secret world of automata and stagecraft, illusions and effects. His suspicions fall on the staff of Kramer's company, who have been employed to stage a gruesome new thriller in the West End. As a second impossible death occurs, the detectives uncover forgotten museums and London eccentrics, and take a trip to a seaside Punch & Judy show. Then Bryant's biographer suddenly dies. Was it a tragic accident, or could the circumstances of her death be related to the case? There's just one hour left to solve the crime, but Bryant has buried himself away with his esoteric books. The stage is set for a race against time with a surprising twist...

Two small children are playing a game called 'Witch-Hunter'. They place a curse on a young woman taking lunch in a church courtyard and wait for her to die. An hour later she is found dead inside the church. Bryant and May must investigate.

The first graphic "comic" version of an Arthur Bryant & John May short story, The Soho Devil!, beautifully illustrated by Keith Page. A bonus second illustrated short, The Severed Claw, is included. This high-quality hardback also contains the essay How to Invent a Mystery Series, Arthur Bryant's Secret Library, The Peculiar Crimes Unit Sketch Gallery, and The Strange Cases of Bryant & May (consisting of the covers and first flyleaf material of all ten B&M novels published so far.) Planned as an annual series, the second volume will contain a graphic rendering of story The Deptford Demon. Plans for more volumes have unfortunately been 'shelved'.

London's wiliest detectives, Arthur Bryant and John May, are back on the case in this fiendishly clever new mystery . . . and when a cemetery becomes the scene of a crime, neither secrets—nor bodies—stay buried. Romain Curtis sneaks into St. George's Gardens one evening with his date, planning to show her the stars. A centuries-old burial ground, the small, quiet park is the perfect place to be alone. Yet the night takes a chilling turn when the two teenagers spy a strange figure rising from among the tombstones: a corpse emerging from the grave. Suffice it to say that wherever there's a dead man walking, Bryant and May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit are never far behind. As the PCU investigates the sighting, a second urgent matter requires their unusual brand of problem-solving. Seven ravens have gone missing from their historic home in the Tower of London, and legend has it that when the ravens disappear, England will fall. Bryant has been tasked with recovering the lost birds, but when Romain is suddenly found dead, the two seemingly separate mysteries start to intertwine and point to a plot more sinister than anyone could ever imagine. Soon Bryant and May find themselves immersed in London's darkest lore, from Victorian-era body snatchers, to arcane black magic, to the grisly myth behind Bleeding Heart Yard, a courtyard long associated with murder. And as the body count spikes and more coffins are unearthed, they will have to dig deep to catch a killer and finally lay these cases to rest. Inventive, darkly funny, and fast-paced, "Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart "is a brilliantly twisting puzzle, as only Christopher Fowler can write. Praise for Christopher Fowler's ingenious novels featuring the Peculiar Crimes Unit "A brilliant series."—"The Denver Post " ""The Invisible Code" has immense charm, but its plotting will satisfy serious mystery fans... Best of all are the two main characters, particularly Bryant, whose fine British stodginess is matched perfectly by the agility of his crime-solving mind."—"The New York Times" "Spiced with a little screwball-comedy dialogue and a touch of the occult."—"The Washington Post"," "on" The Memory of Blood" "Fowler, like his crime-solvers, is deadpan, sly, and always unexpectedly inventive."—"Entertainment Weekly" " " "May and Bryant make a stellar team."—"The Wall Street Journal" ""Grumpy Old Men" does "CSI" with a twist of Dickens! Bryant and May are hilarious. I love this series."—Karen Marie Moning, #1 "New York Times" bestselling author of the MacKayla Lane novels "[A] trademark mix of whimsical humor and macabre thrills."—"Publishers Weekly" (starred review) "[Christopher] Fowler reinvents and reinvigorates the traditional police procedural.""—The Boston Globe"

In this fast-paced Peculiar Crimes Unit mystery, available as an eBook short story, detectives Arthur Bryant and John May must crack a puzzling Christmas case with some extra assistance from Santa’s little helpers. Includes a preview of Christopher Fowler’s upcoming Peculiar Crimes Unit mystery, Bryant & May and the Burning Man! The streets of London are covered in twinkling lights and freshly fallen snow, but the mood inside the Christmas department of Selfridges is decidedly less cheery. Bryant and May have arrived there to investigate the death of an eleven-year-old boy who inexplicably fled the store after a routine visit to Santa’s Wonderland. Their only clue is a torn scrap of blue cloth discovered at the scene. Now, Bryant and May are making a list of suspects, but they’d better check it twice to catch a shifty culprit in disguise. Praise for Christopher Fowler’s brilliant Peculiar Crimes Unit novels “Fowler, like his crime-solvers, is deadpan, sly, and always unexpectedly inventive.” —Entertainment Weekly “Delectably droll . . . brainy and pure.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times “Fowler reinvents and reinvigorates the traditional police procedural.”—The Boston Globe “May and Bryant make a stellar team.” —The Wall Street Journal “Fowler has few peers when it comes to constructing ingenious and intricate plots.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

No case is too curious for Arthur Bryant and John May, London’s most ingenious detectives. But with their beloved city engulfed in turmoil, they’ll have to work fast to hold a sinister killer’s feet to the fire. In the week before Guy Fawkes Night, London’s peaceful streets break out in sudden unrest. Enraged by a scandal involving a corrupt financier accused of insider trading, demonstrators are rioting outside the Findersbury Private Bank, chanting, marching, and growing violent. But when someone hurls a Molotov cocktail at the bank’s front door, killing a homeless man on its steps, Bryant, May, and the rest of the Peculiar Crimes Unit is called in. Is this an act of protest gone terribly wrong? Or a devious, premeditated murder? Their investigation heats up when a second victim is reported dead in similar fiery circumstances. May discovers the latest victim has ties to the troubled bank, and Bryant refuses to believe this is mere coincidence. As the riots grow more intense and the body count climbs, Bryant and May hunt for a killer who’s adopting incendiary methods of execution, on a snaking trail of clues with roots in London’s history of rebellion, anarchy, and harsh justice. Now, they’ll have to throw themselves in the line of fire before the entire investigation goes up in smoke. Suspenseful, smart, and wickedly funny, Bryant & May and the Burning Man is a brilliantly crafted mystery from the beloved Christopher Fowler. Praise for Christopher Fowler’s ingenious novels featuring the Peculiar Crimes Unit “A brilliant series.”—The Denver Post “Fowler, like his crime-solvers, is deadpan, sly, and always unexpectedly inventive.”—Entertainment Weekly “Mr. Fowler’s small but ardent American following deserves to get much larger. And The Invisible Code is a delightful introduction to his work... The Invisible Code has immense charm, but its plotting will satisfy serious mystery fans... Best of all are the two main characters, particularly Bryant, whose fine British stodginess is matched perfectly by the agility of his crime-solving mind.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times, on The Invisible Code “Picture a television series that is a rough mash-up of Law & Order, The X-Files, and Monty Python’s Flying Circus . . . and you have the Peculiar Crimes Unit... These stories are witty, challenging, engrossing, informative and incredibly well-written.”—Bookreporter “Spiced with a little screwball-comedy dialogue and a touch of the occult.”—The Washington Post, on The Memory of Blood “May and Bryant make a stellar team.”—The Wall Street Journal “Fowler reinvents and reinvigorates the traditional police procedural.” —The Boston Globe

The river Thames is London’s most important yet neglected artery. When a young woman is found chained to a post in the tide, no-one can understand how she came to be drowned there. At the Peculiar Crimes Unit, Arthur Bryant and John May find themselves dealing with an impossible crime committed in a very public place. Soon they discover that the river is giving up other victims, but as the investigation extends from the coast of Libya to the nightclubs of North London, it proves as murkily sinister as the Thames itself. That’s only part of the problem; Bryant’s rapidly deteriorating condition prevents him from handling the case, and he is confined to home. To make matters worse, May makes a fatal error of judgement that knocks him out of action and places everyone at risk. With the PCU staff baffled as much by their own detectives as the case, the only people who can help now are the battery of eccentrics Bryant keeps listed in his diary, but will their arcane knowledge save the day or make matters even worse? Soon there’s a clear suspect in everyone’s sights – the only thing that’s missing is any scrap of evidence. As the detectives’ disastrous investigation comes unstuck, the whole team gets involved in some serious messing about on the river. In an adventure that’s as twisting as the river upon which it’s set, will there be anything left of the Peculiar Crimes Unit when it’s over?

Detectives Arthur Bryant and John May are back on the case in this whip-smart and wildly twisting mystery, in which a killer in London's parks is proving to be a most elusive quarry. Helen Forester's day starts like any other: Around seven in the morning, she takes her West Highland terrier for a walk in her street's private garden. But by 7:20 she is dead, strangled yet peacefully laid out on the path, her dog nowhere to be found. The only other person in the locked space is the gardener, who finds the body and calls the police. He expects proper cops to arrive, but what he gets are Bryant, May, and the wily members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit. Before the detectives can make any headway on the case, a second woman is discovered in a public park, murdered in nearly identical fashion. Bryant, recovering from a health scare, delves into the arcane history of London's cherished green spaces, rife with class drama, violence, and illicit passions. But as a devious killer continues to strike, Bryant and May struggle to connect the clues, not quite seeing the forest for the trees. Now they have to think and act fast to save innocent lives, the fate of the city's parks, and the very existence of the PCU. An irresistibly witty, inventive blend of history and suspense, Bryant & May: Wild Chamber is Christopher Fowler in classic form.

London, 1969. With the Swinging Sixties under way, Detectives Arthur Bryant and John May find themselves caught in the middle of a good, old-fashioned manor house murder mystery. Hard to believe, but even positively ancient sleuths like Bryant and May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit were young once . . . or at least younger. Flashback to London 1969: mods and dolly birds, sunburst minidresses—but how long would the party last? After accidentally sinking a barge painted like the Yellow Submarine, Bryant and May are relegated to babysitting one Monty Hatton-Jones, the star prosecution witness in the trial of a disreputable developer whose prefabs are prone to collapse. The job for the demoted detectives? Keep the whistle-blower safe for one weekend. The task proves unexpectedly challenging when their unruly charge insists on attending a party at the vast estate Tavistock Hall. With falling stone gryphons, secret passageways, rumors of a mythical beast, and an all-too-real dismembered corpse, the bedeviled policemen soon find themselves with “a proper country house murder” on their hands. Trapped for the weekend, Bryant and May must sort the victims from the suspects, including a hippie heir, a blond nightclub singer, and Monty himself—and nobody is quite who he or she seems to be.

The brilliant Arthur Bryant and John May take the late, late shift in a cat-and-mouse hunt with a killer who preys on his victims at the same time every night—the lonely hour of 4 A.M. When a man is found hanging upside down inside a willow tree on Hampstead Heath, surrounded by a baffling assortment of occult objects, the Peculiar Crimes Unit is called in to investigate. Was this a botched satanic ritual pulled off by bored teenagers, a gang initiation, or the work of a mastermind with grander intentions? Bryant and May set off in search of answers and are soon reminded that London is a city steeped in blood and magic. When another body is pulled from the river at dawn, it becomes clear that a killer lurks in the night. To catch him, the PCU switches to graveyard shifts, but the team still comes up short. As they explore a night city where the normal rules do not apply, they're drawn deeper into a case that involves murder, arson, kidnapping, blackmail, loneliness, and bats. May takes a technological approach, while Bryant goes in search of his usual academics and misfits for help, for this investigation reveals impossibilities at every turn. How do you stop a killer who appears not to exist? Luckily, impossibilities are what the Peculiar Crimes Unit does best.

In every detective’s life there are cases that can’t be discussed, and throughout the Bryant & May novels there have been mentions of some of these such as the Deptford Demon or the Little Italy Whelk Smuggling Scandal. Now Arthur Bryant has decided to open the files on eleven of these previously unseen investigations that required the collective genius and unique modus operandi of Arthur Bryant and John May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit - investigations that range from different times (London during the Great Smog) and a variety of places: a circus freak show, on board a London Tour Bus and even a yacht off the coast of Turkey. And in addition to these eleven classic cases, readers are also given a privileged look inside the Peculiar Crimes Unit (literally, with a cut away drawing of their offices), a guide to the characters of the Peculiar Crimes Unit, and access to the contents of Arthur Bryant’s highly individual library.

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’!

"The most delightfully, wickedly entertaining duo in crime fiction." The Plain Dealer 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 accidentally killed by a van unloading oranges and lemons for the annual St. Clement Danes festival. It's an absurd way to die, 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.

Oh, joy, a new Peculiar Crimes Unit case by Christopher Fowler . . . the best fun is running all over the city with these amiable partners. The New York Times Book Review, on Bryant & May: The Lonely Hour The brilliant duo of Arthur Bryant and John May uncover a nefarious plot behind the seemingly innocuous death of an old lady—and when the case leads them to the London Bridge, it all comes down on the Peculiar Crimes Unit. Ninety-one-year-old Alice Hoffman died alone in her top-floor flat. Social services say she slipped through the cracks in a failing system. But detectives Arthur Bryant and John May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit have their suspicions. Mrs. Hoffman was not as innocent as she appeared. A former government security expert, she had once worked for their own unit, but there's no one left who can remember her. And when they uncover a link between her and a diplomat desperate to leave the country, it begins to look as if someone might have committed an impossible murder. But Mrs. Hoffman wasn't acting alone. Arthur Bryant is convinced that a group of talented women have been working together for decades and now the others are in danger. With the help of some of his more certifiable contacts and historical experts, he and John May embark on an investigation that will lead them down forgotten alleyways to riverside buildings and on to the city's oldest bridge. But just when the case appears to have been solved and unit chief Raymond Land can congratulate everyone on ending a threat to international security, the detectives discover that they've been the victims of the biggest deception of all. For even after her death, Mrs. Hoffman would prove too clever for them . . . Bryant and May's twentieth-anniversary case brings an ending and a new beginning to London's most peculiar crimes unit and all who work there.

Thinking of a jaunt to England? Let Arthur Bryant and John May, London's oldest police detectives, show you the oddities behind the façades of the city in this tongue-in-cheek travel guide. It's getting late. I want to share my knowledge of London with you, if I can remember any of it. So says Mr. Arthur Bryant. He and John May are the nation's oldest serving detectives. Who better to reveal its secrets? Why does this rainy, cold, gray city capture so many imaginations? Could its very unreliability hold the key to its longevity? The detectives are joined by their boss, Raymond Land, and some of their most disreputable friends, each an argumentative and unreliable expert in their own dodgy field. Each character gives us a short tour of odd buildings, odder characters, lost venues, forgotten disasters, confusing routes, dubious gossip, illicit pleasures, and hidden pubs. They make all sorts of connections and show us why it's almost impossible to separate fact from fiction in London.