Digital Reads Reviews

Many thanks to Emma and Damp Pebbles Blog Tours for my spot on this Blog Tour.

I am a simple reviewer who reads a book, enjoys those hours of reading, then I promptly forget about the book. So I can’t compare this book and say it was as good as…. Huhh what was I saying? 😂😂

The short end of my story was this book was brilliant. I loved Detective Bryant. He caused a zing in my heart. I was quite intrigued by the idea of his trifocals. He was quirky, he was annoying, a sexist, politically incorrect. Yet he had the X factor which attracted me toward the book and keep my interest spinning into his world. A sharp mind with a bumbling demeanor made the heart strings go twang.

Now for the long end of my story. Bryant and May were detectives, part of Peculiar Crimes Unit. This book foretold 12 of their best stories where hardly any technology or forensics were used, only the sharp razor of a brain linked the clues diligently, and a story was beheld at the end. That’s what happened. May was the perfect counterfoil to Bryant, subtle and sober, with a quick tongue showing me his partner’s foibles.

My first book by author Christopher Fowler. I just gave to say – Who is this man? And why haven’t I read his books? How could I have been so amiss? (Psst – I blame Emma for this injustice). The writing was eclectic, gave me the aura of the old masters. The atmosphere was Hitchcockian, the intelligence like Sherlock, pace was fast yet detailed, characters were varied, and dialogues humorous. The entire team was clever and cohesive.

I loved Bryant. I should be allowed to be repetitive in my review when Bryant was brilliant in all the stories. Wasn’t that repetitive? His mind was the piranha, snapping up the details with a single sight…eer bite. Bryant and May made the best team, no wonder they were England’s finest. Now how would I go about getting a role in the book as Bryant’s assistant?

Bryant and Shalini has a nice ring to it. Is Christopher Fowler listening?

This review was written at 4am with me barely being awake.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley and publisher, and this is my journey into its pages, straight from the heart!! STRICTLY HONEST AND UNBIASED.

All my reviews can be read here

Christopher Fowler is an English novelist living in London, his books contain elements of black comedy, anxiety and social satire. As well as novels, he writes short stories, scripts, press articles and reviews.

He lives in King’s Cross, on the Battlebridge Basin, and chooses 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.

Twelve more missing cases from the archive of the Peculiar Crimes Unit. And they nearly were missing too, as unit chief Raymond Land explains in his foreword, ‘because Arthur Bryant left the files on the floor where the Two Daves had decided to stand their mini-cement mixer, and it was only my quick thinking that saved the day…’.

The cases here include the festive gem ‘Bryant & May and the Seventh Reindeer’ plus other delights such as ‘Bryant & May meet Dracula’, ‘Bryant & May’s Day Off’ and ‘Bryant & May and the Breadcrumb Trail’. And if twelve new tales with their glorious mix of esoterica, detective work and low comedy weren’t enough, this collection also includes such delightful extras as ‘A Brief History of Bryant & May’, potted biographies of the members of the PCU and their associates plus Christopher Fowler’s own notes on each of these cases, and an afterword in which he explains how he believes Golden Age detectives can work – even flourish – in the modern technological age.

Publication Date: 31st October 2019