2025/045: Full Dark House — Christopher Fowler

2025/045: Full Dark House — Christopher Fowler

May was finding it increasingly hard to concentrate on Bryant’s theories when, just a short distance from London, the bodies of so many innocent civilians were being dragged from the smoking ruins of a town. Their case seemed absurd and almost pointless by comparison. [p. 217]

First in the Bryant and May series, read for book club. It begins in contemporary London, when ageing detective John May investigates the death of his longtime colleague Arthur Bryant in an explosion. He finds himself remembering their very first case together, in wartime London, with the perils of the Blitz complicating a series of murders at the Palace Theatre. The crimes coincide with the opening of a scandalous new production of Offenbach's 'Orpheus in the Underworld' -- and the plot of that operetta may hold clues to the pattern of the crimes. ( Read more... )