Two Recent Reads

The first Ellery Queen novel, The Roman Hat Mystery, from 1929, is an interesting experience. The character hadn't quite gelled yet, and at the book's beginning is living in retirement in Italy with his father and also with his wife and child, and their manservant Djuna. (Not Djnma Barnes!) A friend meets them at random and convinces them to tell a tale of one of their cases. Ellery, as first introduced, is simultaneously a rough-n-ready athletic type but with the sensibilities of an effete snob a la Philo Vance. Murder happens in the Roman Theater in New York when sleazy lawyer Monte Field collapses during a performance, and it's soon revealed that he was poisoned. Who did it? Why? There's no shortage of suspects, as always...there's a woman he groped, his former law partner who detested him, the ex-con, and others. Why was Field sitting in the middle of a block of empty seats? And what is the significance of Fields' missing top hat? As it turns out, plenty. It's an enjoyable exercise although it's technique is better than its grace in style. The authors seem too absorbed in showing off their intricacies of plot than having any real literary strength, and sometimes the wiseguy attitude that comes across in the narration gets a little grating. Djuna will make many modern readers cringe as he's something of a stereotype, and while the final solution is indeed fair play, the motive behind the murder has dated badly and wouldn't raise an eyebrow today.

It's interesting to read the first book of the series; I've read a few others...Calamity Town, Cat of Many Tails, and And on the Eighth Day (which was partly ghostwritten by Avram Davidson)...and those had really literary depth, especially the third which functioned as both a detective story and a religious allegory. As the series progressed, the authors grew less obsessed with contrived plots and technical puzzle mysteries and the stories became more naturalistic and character-driven.The main character became more human and humane, and his wife and child were dropped from the narrative with no explanation.

The Roman Hat Mystery is out there in paperbacks and also as an ebook; it's an interesting historic curiosity, but I wouldn't recommend going out of your way for it.

Any reader of this blog should know I'm a fan of Christopher Fowler's Bryant & May series, and this just keeps things going. This time the Occupy movement is used not merely as a backdrop but also a plot element. In Bryant & May and the Burning Man Guy Fawkes Day is coming nigh, and an insider-trading scandal has protesters out in force, making a ruckus over corruption in England's banks. During all the hoo-ha, a man is burned to death in what first seemed like an accident, but the Peculiar Crimes Unit soon realizes is murder. There's a few more murders, and it becomes obvious that the murderer seems to be very carefully committing his crimes to whip up the crowds even more. The final climax comes on Guy Fawkes night and the plot revealed...

There's an odd air of finality about this book, as a couple of ongoing subplots in the series are resolved...one long-simmering love affair takes off, while another love affair ends, and a likable character leaves. And Bryant is starting to develop Alzheimer's and his normally labyrinthine brain becomes foggier and foggier. However, there are more in the series, thank goodness, but I wonder if Fowler was considering ending things there.

As always with Fowler, this is Require Reading.

BRYANT & MAY AND THE BLEEDING HEART by Christopher Fowler

Catching up with Christopher Fowler is always a delight. His books never fail to entertain.

Two teenagers go to a London park, ostensibly to stargaze. The park is really a long-disused cemetery, still kept up, and while on a romantic stroll, they encounter what appears to be a case of the living dead: a seeming corpse suddenly standing and moving toward them before collapsing.

Of course, the Peculiar Crimes Unit is called on the case. There's more to this than they anticipate; the corpse died recently, a seeming suicide, but there's something about the shady people he was working for that could have led to his desperate act. And now his wife is stalking her husband's former associates, and the teenaged son grows more surly.

It gets more complicated as one of the teenage witnesses is murdered, and more corpses pile up. There's another mystery going on, of how the famous ravens from the Tower of London are suddenly missing. Superstition has it that this is a sign of the collapse of the nation; is it really? And is that Crowleyesque Satanist who showed up in the last book somehow responsible?

This kicks off another investigation through modern London, which is every bit as bizarre and gothick as anything from a Hammer film. The story involves some strange forgotten corners of the city, a group of resurrectionists, and a jolly undertaker, before coming to a rational and satisfying end.

This is fabulous fun, a great old-fashioned tale with enough modernism to keep it from being out-of-date. There's some good exploration of Bryant and May's psyches and we delve into some of the other PCU members as well. The teenage daughter of one member gets pulled into some detective work as well....PCU, The Next Generation?

Any Bryant & May is a great read, and this especially is great reading as autumn gathers around us. As always, it's Required Reading.

THE INVISIBLE CODE by Christopher Fowler

Bryant and May are back! Fowler's "Peculiar Crimes Unit" series occupies a place of honor on my Required Reading shelf, and this one is a proud addition.

Bryant and May, the two aging detectives who form the core of London's Peculiar Crimes Unit, are still going their eccentric way in one of mystery fiction's great bromances. They form a longtime partnership that nurtures and sustains them both, and while one may never say to the other, "I love you," in that best-friends-forever way, you can tell that both realize it and understand.

This time, we open with a woman being stalked by two children who think she's a witch. They follow her into a church and determine to kill her....and she dies. Her death is mysterious; no cause found. Meanwhile, a Home Office superior, who's long threatened to shut down the PCU, asks the unit for help. His wife is behaving oddly, seemingly having a mental breakdown and thinking she's being persecuted by supernatural forces. Witches? They're assigned to track her and figure out what's going on.

It all comes together very nicely, in sometimes surprising ways. Fowler takes us into the world of Eastern European immigrants and the privileged ranks of government officials and private clubs. The plot takes surprising, but perfectly reasonable twists, and does flirt with the supernatural, including an encounter with a fellow who seems like he'll be a menace in a future work.

It has a very satisfying conclusion, and the next book in the series, "Bryant and May and the Bleeding Heart," is now available. I'll have to start on that soon to find out if my hunch is right...

Anyway, read this. It's a lot of fun. And read the rest of the series as well. You'll thank me.

THE MEMORY OF BLOOD by Christopher Fowler

It's the opening-night cast party for "The Two Murderers," a gruesome new play on the London stage, and it's at the ritzy penthouse of producer Robert Kramer. Of course, there's all the usual conflicts and rivalries in the company. But things take a gruesome turn when Kramer's infant child is thrown out the window of the locked nursery...and seemingly done by a life-sized Punch figure.

Naturally, given the big names involved and the bizarre nature of the crime, detectives Bryant & May, and the rest of the Peculiar Crimes Unit are on the case. And it leads them into all sorts of theatrical bizzarerie, including Punch and Judy shows and the Grand Guignol. Also, a young lady helping Bryant on his memoirs dies suddenly and strangely; was it an accident or murder? Is it associated or not?

I have to admit...I started reading this, then had to put it aside for a while. I didn't like the murder of a baby. I've read novels that have the murders of children and sometimes it's done for sheer lurid shock value. But, after a break, I made myself pick it back up and finish it. And I have to say...the murder of the child makes sense. Not only is it a reference to Punch and Judy shows (which does figure in the plot and you'll learn a bit from reading this), but it also makes sense in the murderer's plot. So even though it may strike some as distasteful, it serves a purpose.

And there's further murders, mostly following in the classic theatrical madman fashion. And the deepening mystery around a young transcriber's death. And more looks into some byways of English history and culture, like a visit to Brighton and a horror sculptor's studio.

Despite my initial distaste for the story, I ended up enjoying this a great deal. I did get a chill down my spine at hints that the next book would be the last in the series. In this book several simmering subplots near resolution, and there's even a passing reference to going out with a bang. Eeep.

So yeah, this is on the Required Reading shelf, with the rest of the Bryant & May series. And the next one is waiting in the wings.

Required Reading: BRYANT & MAY OFF THE RAILS by Christopher Fowler

I'm way late on getting this started; his new book is already hitting shelves. But hey, at least it's here.

Bryant & May, the aging cops who star in Fowler's delightful series, are happy that their old team is reassembled and it looks like the Peculiar Crimes Unit (or PCU) is about to be officially reinstated. They're smarting from a double loss: the death of policeman Liberty Ducaine, killed at the end of the last book, and the escape of wily criminal Mr. Fox, a sort of funhouse-mirror version of Bryant & May themselves.

They're trying to pick up Fox's trail (tally ho!) when a series of crimes in London's Underground (for the uninitiated, that's London's historic subway system, opened in 1863 and often referred to as The Tube) catch their attention. There's a robbery during a flash mob dance, then a woman dies under odd circumstances. It appears she simply tripped and fell on the stairs, but there's an odd sticker on her back, and there's a strong possibility that she was pushed. But why?

Soon there's an attempted murder, a disappearance, and two more deaths, and the PCU is running mad through the subway system, trying to locate the killer. Are they related? What about the oddball group of college students? Are they anarchists? What's the story with that nightclub? Is it Mr. Fox? Is it someone else?

Fowler's obvious passion for London's history and landscape are evident, and his focus (obviously) is on the Underground. The personnel of the PCU are in their full eccentric glory, and Liberty Ducaine's brother Fraternity shows up. Mr. Fox is as evil as ever, and there's enough references to past cases to keep thing lively.

There's also a very amusing bit where one of the two detectives has been found to be writing his memories of some of his cases (obviously, the earlier novels in the series) and is criticized for playing fast and loose with the timeline and their own ages - obvious a fun nod to the fact that these two policemen haven't aged a jot since being introduced in 2003 and how, in the real world, they'd have been farmed off long ago.

Fowler manages his signature balance of humor and mystery, with enough simmering gothicism to keep things from getting too cutesy and twee. There's talk of how the PCU's new offices were once the HQ for an occult society (and I'm waiting for that to come into play in a future novel) and the general mishmash of London's King's Cross area. There's also a real life tragedy, the 1987 King's Cross Fire, incorporated into the story that gives a good insight into one character's psyche.

Fowler's new book, The Memory of Blood, is out now and I've heard he's got a new one waiting in the wings for later this year. (Dammit, man, I want to sit down and read them all in succession...how can I do that if you keep adding more? Oh well, might as well keep 'em coming.) Bryant & May Off the Rails is indeed off the rails, in the best possible way, and as with the rest of the PCU series, Required Reading.

Required Reading: THE VICTORIA VANISHES, by Christopher Fowler

The sixth of Fowler's Bryant & May series, this was intended to be the last chronicle of the Peculiar Crimes Unit. However, Fowler couldn't let his series schlump off into the sunset, and revived it with the upcoming BRYANT & MAY ON THE LOOSE.

THE VICTORIA VANISHES opens shortly after the last book, WHITE CORRIDOR, with the PCU gathered at a wake for pathologist Oswald Finch. Renfield, an unpopular policeman, is being assigned to the PCU, much to the resentment of the long-time detectives there. But Bryant, after a few, is lurching off into the streets when he sees a woman walking into a pub, the Victoria Cross. Fascinated by old pubs, it sticks in his mind, and resurfaces when the woman is found dead in that neighborhood. Bryant goes to investigate the Victoria Cross....only to find a grocery store, and research shows that the pub has been closed for decades. But now this turns up a bizarre serial-killer plot, with a murderer offing lonely mature women in crowded pubs. But there could be more to it than anyone realizes...

Meanwhile, behind-the-scenes machinations by the PCU's political enemies in the police force may have finally come across a way of shutting down the unit once and for all. And the secrets that Bryant and May have been keeping from each other are finally coming to light.

THE VICTORIA VANISHES is a roaring good read, full of the atmosphere of a crumbling, vanishing London, where historic sites are being torn down in favor of modern developments. There's a nostalgia here, to be sure, but also a very human desire for stability in an ever-changing urban landscape.

The one debit is a somewhat hurried ending, when all is made clear in a sudden tumult, but that doesn't detract from the overall fun of the book. It ends on a note of semi-finality, fine with ending where it was but open to further exploration. And now we know there's more coming down the pike, and I can't wait.

THE VICTORIA VANISHES is great fun and will have you wanting to snoop the crumbling corner pubs in your own city. Go hoist a drink for me, why don't you?

WHITE CORRIDOR by Christopher Fowler

The fifth novel in Fowler's Bryant & May series is still part of the D&C Required Reading list...but only because it's part of the series. On its own, it's a decent mystery novel, but lacking in the gothic grotesquerie that makes the previous books so much fun.

WHITE CORRIDOR begins with the employees of the Peculiar Crimes Unit on a forced vacation while their computer systems are updated. Bryant and May head off to Devon for a spiritualists' convention. However, a freak blizzard arises that traps them in a string of traffic on a snowbound road.

Now we have two mysteries arise. In London, a coroner is found dead in an autopsy room that's locked from the inside. And in Devon, Madeline, a fellow motorist trapped by the snow turns out to be a woman who fled England to escape an abusive husband, only to get entangled with a shady man who's also after her now that she's returned.

And also, a higher-up in the Home Office quickly arranges a visit from a cranky minor royal, in hopes of having the unit shut down once and for all.

So the pressure is on to solve the mystery of the dead coroner quickly. Bryant & May consult with their colleagues via cell phone, while assisting the panicked Madeline.

So really, not a bad set-up at all, but Fowler's obsessions with London's crumbling landscape and bizarre history, one of the fun parts of the series that set it apart, are largely absent from this book. There's a lot of great characterization, though, which keeps things moving. In fact, most of what gothicism there is in WHITE CORRIDOR is in the characters and their personalities, rather than their surroundings.

It's a good book, but it's just not up to the standards of the rest. I was led to suspect it's basically a place-holder between TEN SECOND STAIRCASE and the next book, THE VICTORIA VANISHES. When I get around to reading TVV, I'll let you know.