Sledujte nekonvenčné duo detektívov, Arthura Bryanta a Johna Maya, ktorí pracujú v londýnskej Jednotke pre podivné zločiny. Táto séria vás zavedie do srdca Londýna, kde sa stretnete s bizarnými prípadmi a výstrednými postavami. Každý diel je majstrovsky prepletený záhadami, humorom a jedinečnou atmosférou. Odhaľte tajomstvá hlavného mesta s týmito nezabudnuteľnými hrdinami.
When a bomb devastates the office of London's most unusual police unit and claims the life of Arthur Bryant, his partner John May searches for clues to the bomber's identity. Before long he is on the trail through Blitz-ravaged London and the gothic world of the theatre.
“Traditional mystery buffs with a taste for the offbeat will relish British author Fowler's wonderful second contemporary whodunit featuring the Peculiar Crimes Unit and its elderly odd couple, Arthur Bryant and John May.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) How can an elderly recluse drown in a chair in her otherwise dry basement? That’s what John May and Arthur Bryant of London’s Peculiar Crimes Unit set out to discover in a city rife with shady real estate developers, racist threats, dodgy academicians, and someone dangerously obsessed with Egyptian mythology. Linking them all is an evil lurking in London’s vast and forgotten underground river system—a killer with the eerie ability to strike anywhere, anytime, without leaving a clue. It’s a subterranean case of secrets, lies, and multiple murder that defies not only the law, but reason itself. Can Bryant and May bring a killer to the surface and stop the dark tide of murder before it pulls them under, too? “A clever twist on the traditional police procedural . . . The real thrill here is the delightful duo in the starring roles, two fresh and unusual characters who manage to breathe new life into an established genre in which it’s getting harder and harder to find anything genuinely fresh.”—Booklist “Humorous, engaging.”—Kirkus Reviews
It was late in 1973. As strikes and blackouts ravaged the country during Edward Heath's 'Winter of Discontent', sundry members of a wealthy, aristocratic family were being disposed of in a variety of grotesque ways. Bryant and May, the irascible detectives, know that time is the key.
A controversial artist is found dead in her own art installation inside a riverside gallery with locked doors and windows - the only witness is a small boy who insists the murderer was a masked man on a horse. Two seemingly impossible crimes that only Arthur Bryant and John May of the Met's Peculiar Crimes Unit might be able to solve.
The unthinkable has happened at London's Peculiar Crimes Unit. With the exception of Arthur Bryant and John May that is, for the eccentric detectives who run London's strangest crime division are stranded on a desolate snowbound road somewhere in the West Country on their way to a spiritualists' convention.
One night, Arthur Bryant witnesses a drunk middle-aged lady coming out of a pub in a London backstreet. As their new team at the Peculiar Crimes Unit goes in search of a madman, the octogenarian detectives ready themselves for the pub crawl of a lifetime, and come face to face with their own mortality...
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...
They've been given just one week to find a killer they'd caught once before . . . Edging closer to what lies hidden beneath the city - and to the madness that is driving a man to murder - Bryant and May are about to uncover a mystery as bizarre as anything they have ever encountered . . .
The defenestration of a ruthless theatre impresario's young son was definitely not the best way to end the play's first night party. Delving into the history of London theatre and the gruesome origins of 'Punch and Judy', they uncover a maniacal killer is at work - one who must be caught before it's curtains for everyone!
And so begins an investigation that will test the members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit to their limits, setting Arthur Bryant off on a trail that leads to Bedlam and Bletchley Park, and into the world of madness, codes and the secret of London's strangest relic.
And, as the legend has it, when the ravens leave, the nation falls...Soon it seems death is all around and Bryant and May must confront a group of latter- day bodysnatchers, explore an eerie funeral parlour and unearth the gruesome legend of Bleeding Heart Yard.
At the same time, several members of the PCU team reach dramatic turning points in their lives - but the most personal tragedy is yet to come, for as the race to bring down a cunning killer reaches its climax, Arthur Bryant faces his own devastating day of reckoning.
The river Thames is London's most important yet neglected artery. At the Peculiar Crimes Unit, Arthur Bryant and John May find themselves dealing with an impossible crime committed in a very public place. 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?
Near London Bridge Station, members of the Met's Peculiar Crimes Unit race to catch a killer. In the dark and the rain, they unwittingly cause a bizarre accident - one that will have repercussions for them all... One year later, a smartly dressed woman is found strangled in a locked private London garden. The dog she was walking has disappeared, her husband is missing, and a nanny has vanished too - so far, so typical a case for Bryant and May. As Bryant delves into the arcane history of London's extraordinary parks and gardens - its "wild chambers" - May and the rest of the team become mired in a national scandal. It seems likely that the killer is preparing to strike again, and if the city's open spaces aren't safe, then surely they must be closed...
The year is 1969 and ten guests are about to enjoy a country house weekend at Tavistock Hall.
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
"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"--
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.
In every detective's life there are cases that can't be discussed. This book presents 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 and a variety of places.
"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