Bryant & May On The Loose
Christopher Fowler
Bantam, Nov 24 2009, $25.00
ISBN: 9780553807196
With the dissolution of the Peculiar Crimes Unit, the eleven living members (to include the cat) feels good about what they accomplished and assume their one deceased member looks down on them fondly. However each will miss this peculiar team as the camaraderie between the misfits assigned here was stratospheric as was their success rate. Senior Detectives Arthur Bryant and John May react differently to the end of their police careers. Whereas the depressed former hides under the covers with his books as companions the latter considers going private.
However, all changes when a half man-half stag apparently abducts women followed by the finding of a severed head corpse found in King’s Cross. May eloquently points out to the Home Office bureaucrats that if the crimes are left unsolved it could paint a nasty picture of London just before the 2012 Olympics come to the city. Reluctantly the brass authorizes the PCU to work on the severed head case for a week, but with conditions. They have no access to the “real” police, no official authorization, no computers, and no running water toilet in the rental dump provided to the PCU team. May reassembles the team, but a grateful Bryant focuses on the headed stag-man rather than the homicide.
The seventh PCU zany police procedural is the usual insane mix of humor with the criminal absurd in what is always a super read. May is his usual optimistic self while Bryan remains the pessimist. However what makes their case so much fun is Christopher Fowler slices the top off of the glass so it is full. Fans will relish the return in the aptly titled BRYANT & MAY ON THE LOOSE; as the bureaucrats and politicians have as much to fear from this duet as the felons.
Harriet Klausner
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