Bryant & May off the Rails: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery Paperback – September 13, 2011

British author Christopher Fowler's latest novel, "Bryant & May Off the Rails" is the eighth in his series about London's "Peculiar Crimes Unit". The unit, which is stocked with interesting cop odd-balls, is charged with investigating crimes that have fallen between cracks by the Metropolitan Police. As the series continues, Arthur Bryant and his partner, John May, are trying to find a serial killer who has eluded capture after escaping from custody and killing a popular member of the Unit. Also, someone - another murderer - is striking victims in the Tube system, in particular at Kings Cross/St Pancras Station. The PCU is also in grave danger of being disbanded. So, a week in the life of the Unit takes on added importance as they're fighting on all fronts.The most interesting part of the novel - other than the interplay between the characters - is Fowler's writing about the London Tube system. There's a lot going on underground and Fowler brings the tunnels to life in his novel.This novel is the first of the series I've read, though I do have Fowler's latest in hardback in my TBR pile. His writing reminds me of Joseph Wambaugh's Los Angeles cop series. Terribly politically incorrect, Wambaugh's eccentric characters - who continue from book to book - are far more interesting than the plots, which are basically "vignettes" about police and civilians in Los Angeles (or in the latest book, San Pedro).Fowler's plot in "Bryant and May" is definitely secondary to his characters. I don't know if that's true in all his books, but it was in this book. I enjoyed the book and am looking forward to reading both his new book and his back list. If you're a Wambaugh fan, you'll like Fowler.

Quirky, funny and entertaining contemporary crime thriller featuring the fictitious Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU) of the London Police led by senior citizen detectives, Bryant and May. The PCU, out of favor as always with their more conventionally-minded superiors and other police units, are on the trail of a serial killer operating in and out of the London Underground. Non-traditional sleuthing, the hallmark of the Bryan and May series, is front and center here as the intrepid but squirrelly detectives track Mr. Fox--a psychopath who escaped justice an earlier episode--and other bad guys slaughtering innocents in the depths of the tube. There is a lot of interesting history and information about the London transport system and the city itself built into this highly original crime thriller. As usual, author Christopher Fowler supplies an interesting cast of characters to play off the principals as well as an inventive plot that has plenty of veerings and red herrings. The conclusion is fine, though it neglects to tie off part of the mystery completely. Maybe Mr. Fowler has something more in mind for PCU? You can bet on it.Overall, a good fun read and not a bad introduction to the series.

Every single book in this series is a joy and a treasure but beware, Bryant and May and their supporting cast are some of the quirkiest characters you will ever experience. They are not for everyone. And I think you definitely have to start with the first book in the series to truly understand the full story — about two over the hill detectives that solve cold cases in a manner that is little short of amazing and sure to confound their superiors. There is never a point A to point B clue in these books.In this book, Arthur Bryant and John May and the other members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit have been saved as a department but they have only one week to recapture a murderer that they had caught and lost. Its a funny, intriguing case surrounding the London underground; I had a hard time putting it down and yet didn't want the story to end. Bryant and May may be older than the hills but nothing much gets past them in these witty case stories. Long may they live in Fowler's imagination and creative writing.

The author, as I am, is a Londoner with a fascination for its history. Every book he writes adds to my better understanding of some arcane piece of minutae. His playful adoption of an everyday English box of matches (Bryant & May) as the name of his protagonists is a delightful conceit and his support players similarly are drawn out as utterly believable and yet have to be untreal. If you sit down with a pen and paper, it becomes apparent that Bryant & May have each got be older than 100 years, but in the context could indeed have become a happy backwater of criminal solving that just goes on and on. In any civil service environment, if no-one can work out to whom you are answerable, then no-one can possess the lever to control you or stop your salary. Anyone who reads this tale is recommended to start at the beginning of the series and work their way happily through the near dozen stories. I have. And I intend to restart the series shortly.Alex Mathieson

Fowler is a magician with words but this story is a little drawn out.I’m not giving anything away but there are 2 killers.The story revolves around a group of university house mates who hang out a particular pub.It gets very involved with the PCU following them and as usual the deciphering of their connection to the mystery.The real bad guy is discovered eventually but we are left hanging with his disposition. (Is he really caught?)

I loved this story about a murderer escaped from the custody of The Peculiar Crimes Unit, and a seemingly unrelated murder in the London Underground. Bryan and May are interesting characters, as are the rest of the cast, and the story makes sense for the mostbpart, though I found the major McGuffin implausible.The book suffered a bit from the author’s desire to make it look too much like a sitcom by installing set-piece pratfalls, but I can forgive that.Four stars.

Never know we’re the plot is going

Bryant & May... As usual, bizarre crimes are solved by Bryant & May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit with the aid of a combination of intuition and an array of consultants of such unlikely characters as psychics, witches, historians, and dowsers. Despite the ever-present threat of the Unit being shut down by bureaucrats and politicians, Bryant & May always manage to stay one step ahead of forced retirement.The books are packed with tidbits of London facts and social history. Pubs, cemeteries, boroughs, moldering libraries, and lost rivers feature in the solving of cases. I spend as much time Googling the history and sites as I do reading.

Bryant & May Off the Rails features once again Christopher Fowler's two ageing London detectives from the Peculiar Crimes Unit, Arthur Bryant and John May. It also features two departures from the norm for this series.Normally the books are free-standing, with characters developing across the different novels but the crimes in the books isolated from each other. This time, the plot picks up where the predecessor,  Bryant and May on the Loose , ended with the police chasing the same criminal, Mr. Fox. Moreover, although the book is once again very firmly set in London, the slice of London history which nominally provides the backdrop this time, the London Underground, is not really that important. Sure, plenty of the action happens in stations and tunnels. But the particular history of these parts of London doesn't influence the story very much. It provides a scenic backdrop but not one that influences the plot in ways that would be different from one set on a train network in another city. What is more, one of the few Tube details on which a part of the plot hinges, about disused passenger tunnels in stations being open to the public, is not accurate.That, however, does not take away from a once again entertaining and at times very funny detective story. The set-up of suspects all in a room being questioned by detectives is saved from being a clichéd Agatha Christie cast-off by Fowler instead using it to play homage to her, and having his characters acknowledge the reference.The story is really two different plots woven into one, which makes for more tension and intrigue, though you have to turn a blind eye to the improbable convergence of them at the end, with both plots ending up culminating on the same few square metres of the same platform at the same Underground station.As is common in the series, there is a rich cast of characters, with long-running regular minor figures getting their moments of character development and description, making it feel like there is a large and rounded cast of characters which we readers are just happening to get to see a slice of. Fowler repeats his neat trick from earlier volumes of using memos and a staff roster at the start of the book to quickly bring new readers up to speed on some of the basics of the cast and setting (enough for the book to work even if you have not read its predecessor), and to remind longer-term readers of salient points they may have forgotten.All very enjoyable. Bryant and May on the Loose

Part two, following on from On the Loose. This sees the team out hunting again for the elusive Mr Fox. He has given them the slip and has gone to ground in his lair; the London Underground. Also happening below the streets of London town are several strange murders, inexplicable to the team until Bryant has an idea and everyone knows what that means! Rallying his wacky esoteric friends he persuades his side kick, John May and co to follow him into the maze of dark tunnels where mysterious folk roam just out of sight of the underground network of surveilance cameras. Can they catch Mr Fox before he destroys them all, read it and see! This has so many laugh out loud moments as the team stumble and bumble their way through yet another controversial investigation. Don't underestimate the plots either, they are cleverly mapped out with so many twists and turns it's impossible to work out "who dun it" I adore these novels and am eagerly waiting for the next to drop onto the mat from Amazon. Highly recommended.

If you've never read a Bryant and May you're missing out. They have the warmth and amusement of what's nearly a family, crazy elderly detectives who somehow get to the bottom of modern conundrums, the tang of historical settings, sprightly and entertaining language, with a perennial will they escape being shut down motif. Brilliant.