Wild Chamber

July 1, 2017

When a man snapping photographs in London's Regent Park sees a girl walking a dog--and then sees her vanish into thin air--you know it's time for grumpy old-guy detectives Arthur Bryant and John May to solve another seemingly impossible case. Fowler returns with the next in the "Peculiar Crimes Unit" series, ready to show why he won the 2015 Crime Writers' Association Dagger in the Library Award honoring an entire body of work.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 23, 2017
In British author Fowler’s ingenious 14th whodunit featuring London’s Peculiar Crimes Unit (after 2016’s Bryant & May: Strange Tide), PR executive Helen Forester is strangled while walking her dog in a private garden. Somehow someone entered and exited the garden, which is for the exclusive use of the residents of Clement Crescent, unseen by Ritchie Jackson, the gardener on duty at the time. Helen’s murder occurs less than a year after the freakish death of her seven-year-old son, Charlie, after a glass fragment entered his eye and caused a fatal blood clot. Might there be a connection? The PCU’s investigation is spearheaded by its oddest and most successful investigator, Arthur Bryant, who has been experiencing lucid dreams, including one in which he converses with 17th-century diarist Samuel Pepys. Meanwhile, the unit’s perpetual foe, specialized police budget overseer Leslie Faraday, schemes to use Helen’s murder as a pretext to privatize London’s green spaces and eliminate the PCU once and for all. Fowler brilliantly mixes humor into a fair-play whodunit with an unexpected solution. Agent: Howard Morhaim, Howard Morhaim Literary Agency.

Starred review from November 1, 2017

In their 14th adventure (after Strange Tide) elderly detectives Bryant and May (and the other denizens of the Peculiar Crime Unit [PCU]) contend with a series of inexplicable murders in London's public parks. Not only is a murderer ruining access to public green spaces but high-level government plots are in play to close the parks to develop new profitable properties and to shut down the PCU. Engaging in the unit's arcane approach to crime solving while confounding a new German intern, the duo and their motley crew of associates race against deadlines to identify the killer and save the PCU. VERDICT For fans of offbeat mysteries, Fowler's long-running series continues to offer some of the best reading; the latest entry features an array of eccentric characters, a killer conclusion in a library setting, quirky humor, witty writing, interesting side trips and expositions, and a well-ordered, intricate plot. [See Prepub Alert, 6/12/17.]--ACT

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.