After the somewhat disappointing Seventy-seven Clocks (2005), British author Fowler smoothly blends humor, deduction and social commentary in his fourth oddball whodunit to pay homage to John Dickson Carr and other golden age masters of the impossible crime story. Besides matching a bizarre series of crimes with a logical and plausible fair-play solution, the novel features a high level of psychological complexity, especially in its detectives, the elderly eccentrics Arthur Bryant (who clearly channels Carr's brilliant curmudgeon, Sir Henry Merrivale) and John May. With the pair's beloved Peculiar Crimes Unit on the brink of extinction, Bryant and May must both resolve a cold case featuring the Leicester Square Vampire, whose victims included May's own daughter, and identify the Highwayman, who specializes in locked-room murders of hated celebrities. Far superior to the author's best earlier work, this fine effort places Fowler in the first rank of contemporary mystery writers and whets the appetite for the next Bryant and May case. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Old age can't stop cantankerous detectives Arthur Bryant and John May, the most senior members of London's Peculiar Crimes Unit. The quirky division, whose unorthodox methods have long made it the bane of the city's Metropolitan Police force, takes pride in tackling fiendishly clever crimes. Their latest doozy of a case concerns the murder of a controversial performance artist whose body was placed in her latest works of art: a 12-foot-high tank of liquid containing six aborted fetuses. Absentminded throwbacks Bryant and May make a most amusing pair: May, whose weakness for married women is rivaled only by his adoration for his agoraphobic granddaughter, and Bryant, disheveled, disorganized, and devoted to peculiar sources, including practitioners of black magic. More murders (a B-list celebrity electrocuted on an exercise machine, a pedophile showered with petrol and set on fire) put the two no closer to solving the case, whose suspects include members of a teen street gang and a mysterious cloaked figure sporting a tricorn hat and black mask. Meanwhile, the Peculiar Crimes Unit, still haunted by the unsolved matter of the Leicester Square Vampire, must prove itself worthy before cost-cutting bureaucrats shut the division down for good. This fourth Bryant and May novel delivers a delirious blend of black humor and suspense--recommend it to readers looking for something different in an English procedural. --Allison Block Copyright 2006 Booklist

The North London Peculiar Crimes Unit is about to be dismantled. But that does not stop Arthur Bryant and John May from taking on the odd murder of an artist drowned in her own installation piece-a large tank filled with formaldehyde. The suspect is a cape-wearing highwayman riding a black horse; the elderly detectives are as cantankerous and unfocused as ever yet always seem to get the job done. When they realize that this crime may relate to their unsolved Leicester Square Vampire case, things get dicey. Will they be able to solve both cases before the Home Office padlocks their doors forever? Laced with humor, the fourth book in Fowler's imaginative series (after The Water Room) pokes fun at almost everything in society today. Fowler offers a distinctive prose style and characters so unusual that it is difficult to think of another author's work this creative, unless, of course, it's Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. For readers who enjoy a bit of the bizarre in their mysteries. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Mr. Bryant and Mr. May, well beyond statutory retirement age, show no inclination to leave. The Met scoffs at them. The Home Office derides them. Raymond Land, Acting Temporary Head of the Peculiar Crimes Unit since 1973, thinks they're overdue for psychiatric evaluation. But Bryant, the curmudgeon, and May, the adulterer, command blind loyalty and respect from PCU members Janice Longbright, Dan Banbury and Giles Kershaw, who probably represent their future. Their latest peculiar crime is the death of anti-establishment artist Saralla White, somehow pitched into her gallery installation, a seven-foot-tall tank full of water. According to the only eyewitness, a 13-year-old student from posh St. Crispin's, the malefactor was a man in a cape, a mask and a tricorner hat, riding a horse. Soon enough, another minor celebrity, telly presenter Danny Martell, is mysteriously electrocuted while he's alone in a gym and the same figure, minus his horse, is spotted outside. The newspapers quickly dub him the Highwayman, and he does resemble Dick Turpin, a former St. Crispin's student. John Dickson Carr may plot better, but Fowler (The Water Room, 2005, etc.) has a glorious command of language, knows every nook and tawdry cranny of English history from the Knights Templar onward and has the most fertile conversational patter of anyone save Jonathan Gash. How many locked-room puzzles can the duo unlock before their Peculiar Crimes unit is disbanded? Many more, one hopes. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.