
Part of Series
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’!
Author

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name Christopher Fowler was an English novelist living in London. His books contain elements of black comedy, anxiety and social satire. As well as novels, he wrote short stories, scripts, press articles and reviews. He lived in King's Cross, on the Battlebridge Basin, and chose London as the backdrop of many of his stories because any one of the events in its two-thousand-year history can provide inspiration. In 1998 he was the recipient of the BFS Best Short Story of the Year, for 'Wageslaves'. Then, in 2004, The Water Room was nominated for the CWA People's Choice Award, Full Dark House won the BFS August Derleth Novel of The Year Award 2004 and 'American Waitress' won the BFS Best Short Story of the Year 2004. The novella 'Breathe' won BFS Best Novella 2005.