Christopher Fowler

When a bomb claims the life of John May's detective partner of more than half a century, May becomes convinced that the key to the killer's identity lies in his first case together with his partner.

Returning to the Victoria Cross pub hours after witnessing the murder of a woman, Detective Arthur Bryant is stunned to discover that the pub itself has vanished and the street around it has mysteriously aged, and calls in the Peculiar Crimes Unit to track down a killer who is stalking London's oldest watering holes.

Octogenarian detectives Arthur Bryant and John May investigate the baffling case of a girl strangled but peacefully laid out in a private, locked garden, the first in a series of similar murders in London's parks.

North London Peculiar Crimes Unit may soon close? It might--unless cantankerous, elderly detectives John May and Arthur Bryant can solve the old Leicester Square Vampire case. Oh, and they must also find a bizarre new serial killer nicknamed "The Highwayman" (he wears a black cape, a mask, a three-cornered hat, and rides a black stallion) who's killing B-list celebrities in strange ways.

After years of defying the odds and infuriating their superiors, detectives Arthur Bryant and John May have at last crossed the line -- the Peculiar Crimes Unit has been dissolved. Not even their eccentric genius or phenomenal success rate could save them. While Bryant takes to his bed, his bathrobe, and his esoteric books, the rest of the team take to the streets looking for new careers -- then one of them stumbles upon a gruesome murder. It isn't...

"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 accidentally killed by a van unloading oranges and lemons for the annual St. Clement Danes festival. It's an absurd...

The River Thames is London's most important yet neglected artery. When a young woman is found chained to a post in the tide, no-one can understand how she came to be drowned there. At the Peculiar Crimes Unit, Arthur Bryant and John May find themselves dealing with an impossible crime committed in a very public place. Soon they discover that the river is giving up other victims, but as the investigation extends from the coast of Libya to the nightclubs...

"A teenager sees a dead man rise from his grave--and moments later is killed in a sudden hit-and-run accident. Seven ravens housed in the impenetrable fortress that is the Tower of London vanish without a trace--and legend has it that when the ravens leave, the city will fall. Bryant and May must figure out how these two inexplicable, seemingly unrelated mysteries fit together as they begin an investigation that finds them confronting a group of latter-day...

The indomitable duo of Arthur Bryant and John May, along with the rest of their quirky team, must solve a confounding case with dark ties to the British theater and a killer who may mean curtains for all involved.

Absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder. It makes people think you're dead. So begins Christopher Fowler's foray into the back catalogues and backstories of 99 authors who, once hugely popular, have all but disappeared from our shelves. Whether male or female, domestic or international, flash-in-the-pan or prolific, mega-seller or prize-winner - no author, it seems, can ever be fully immune from the fate of being forgotten. And Fowler, as well...