The Lonely Hour

Starred review from September 16, 2019
In Fowler’s exceptional 17th novel featuring Arthur Bryant and John May of London’s Peculiar Crimes Unit (after 2018’s Bryant & May: Hall of Mirrors), the PCU investigates a murder committed with a trocar, a surgical instrument normally used to drain body fluids. A man wearing a pig mask, Hugo Blake, used it on Dhruv Cheema, who worked in his family’s fashion business. After hanging Cheema upside down in Hampstead Heath, within a circle of objects associated with satanic rituals, Blake stabbed him in the neck. The next night, Blake stabs another man in the neck before throwing his body over a bridge into the Thames. Fowler maintains suspense by alternating between Blake’s bloody campaign and the PCU’s desperate efforts to stop it by trying to find a connection between the victims. Meanwhile, Bryant and May’s decades-old partnership is tested as never before as the two argue fiercely over how to proceed. This whydunit is the epitome of an intelligent page-turner. Agent: Howard Morhaim, Howard Morhaim Literary.

September 15, 2019
Back from the prequel that followed them to 1969 (Bryant and May: Hall of Mirrors, 2018), the members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit settle in to another round of doing what they do best in present-day London: creating chaos while bringing an unusually single-minded killer to book. On normal excursions, the Ladies of the Night meet to map the colonies of the bats they're trying to preserve on Hampstead Heath. But insomniac Sparrow (nee Candice) Martin's brief glimpse of a man on the Heath wearing a pig mask and attacking another man while she's separated from the other Ladies sets her latest outing apart. Even though Sparrow takes flight, the bat journal she accidentally leaves behind allows Hugo Blake to track her down with no trouble after he's finished hanging Dhruv Cheema from his ankles amid the branches of a willow tree and stabbing him to death. Not surprisingly, the ghoulish case is sent to the PCU, where the killing of bank employee Luke Dickinson under very different circumstances but with a suspiciously similar weapon persuades DCI Arthur Bryant, the master of arcane knowledge whose sources of information seem to include every seedy character in London, that the killer, who seems to prefer striking at 4 a.m., has other victims in mind--up to three others, by Bryant's precise reckoning. Since no one outside the PCU shares Bryant's unshakeable conviction, it'll be up to his longtime friend and partner, DCI John May; Operations Director Janice Longbright; DS Meera Mangeshkar; DS Colin Bimsley; and the unit's lesser lights to establish not only who the killer is, but what his victims have in common and where he's likely to strike next. Complications ensue along with the wackiest digressions in the business, at least one gobsmacking coincidence, and two deaths that will catch even the most devoted fans of this wacky franchise by surprise. The crime spree is relatively straightforward, but the devil is in the details, and Fowler's details are hilariously devilish.

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December 1, 2019

Sparrow, a young woman, is out seeking rare bats. She sees something odd, but she doesn't know what she saw. The next morning, Arthur Bryant and John May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit are called to the scene of a murder. Why this particular unit? The murder appears to be a witch's ritual, and the mainstream police want nothing to do with it. Another victim is found, although the connection is a matter of argument. The second victim appears to be a suicide to all except Bryant, who has alienated most of his coworkers and superiors, as only an aging professional can. This includes longtime partner May. But he usually has the right thread even if he investigates in eccentric ways. How many more victims will they find? Will Bryant and May be working together at the conclusion of the case? VERDICT Fowler's 17th installment in the series (following Hall of Mirrors) has all the idiosyncrasies and dark humor of its predecessors but stands alone well. Perfect for fans of police procedurals with nontraditional, especially older, detectives.--Elizabeth Masterson, Mecklenburg Cty. Jail Lib., Charlotte, NC

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2019
There's nothing funny about murder, much less serial murders, yet readers can count on a few lighthearted, even laugh-out-loud, moments when London's Peculiar Crimes Unit?with senior detectives Arthur Bryant, a dotty oldster whose colleagues would follow him anywhere if only out of curiosity, and John May, the slightly younger straight man of the duo?pursue a case. A man's body has been found hanging upside down from a tree on Hampstead Heath, with a wound in his throat and scattered occult objects around?clearly a case for the PCU, an endangered agency that succeeds somehow while breaking all the rules. Soon after, a man's body with a similar wound is found in the Thames, and, in both cases, the time of death is the "lonely hour" of four in the morning. The victims are linked only by having been in a shared taxi one early morning months earlier, the PCU staff struggling to find a motive. A significant entry in a series that's as entertaining as it is is eccentric.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)