The matchless if cantankerous detective duo of Inspectors Bryant and May investigate murky and murderous goings on beneath London's streets.
Christopher Fowler is the acclaimed author of eleven novels, including Roofworld, Spanky, Psychoville and Soho Black, and nine collections of short stories including City Jitters, Sharper Knives, Uncut, The Devil in Me and Demonized. He is a director of the film-marketing company Creative Partnership and lives in London with an incredibly unmotivated cat.The Water Room is the second Bryant & May mystery, the first, Full Dark House, is also published by Bantam Books and the new Bryant & May mystery, Seventy Seven Clocks, is now available from Doubleday.www.booksattransworld.co.uk
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 (after 2004's Full Dark House). A former colleague asks the eccentric Bryant, whose lack of polish coupled with a razor-sharp mind will remind many of Carter Dickson's Sir Henry Merrivale, to investigate his sister's death. Incredibly, the victim was found dead in her basement, apparently drowned, despite the absence of any moisture on her body or her surroundings. Bryant rapidly loops in his more down-to-earth partner, May, who has also been looking into a mystery with a personal connection-the unusual nocturnal ramblings of a disgraced academic who has begun probing London's underground rivers. More strange deaths follow before the unmasking of the surprising murderer. The author's black humor evokes Peter Lovesey's Peter Diamond series, and his successful revival of the impossible crime genre is reminiscent of John Sladek's superb Thackeray Phin novels, Invisible Green and Black Aura. Best known for his horror fiction (Rune, etc.), Fowler should win a whole new set of readers with these fair-play puzzlers. Agent, Mandy Little. (June 28) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
"'Atmospheric, hugely beguiling and as filled with tricks and
sleights of hand as a magician's sleeve...this is English gothic at
its eccentric best; a combination of Ealing comedy and grand opera:
witty, charismatic, occasionally touching and with a genuine power
to thrill'" * JOANNE HARRIS *
"'An evocatively reverential tribute to the genre...the clash of
temperaments between Bryant and May makes them great detectives'" *
TIME OUT *
"'The striking gothic setting of London under fire proves fruitful
ground for a bizarre dark comedy of an investigation...bawdy,
unpredictable and at times hilarious, with a cast of wonderful
grotesques'" -- Maxim Jakubowski * GUARDIAN *
"'A writer of extraordinary imagination'" -- Sunday Express
"'Very cleverly plotted...simultaneously scary and alluring'" --
Daily Telegraph Books of the Year
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