Bøger af Christopher Fowler

It is said a legend is just a beautiful lie...In the second half of the first millennium, the legends say that London disappeared for over four hundred years. We know almost nothing about what happened during that time. But if we could shine a light on the city's ruined walls, we would be in for a shock.For here the Romans are long forgotten. King Scarabold now rules what little remains of the city, together with his over-entitled daughter Giniva, her effete brother Leperdandy and their wayward, lunatic relatives - all squabbling and fighting amongst themselves for the future of their corrupted dynasty while trying to hide their most terrible secret.And opposing Scarabold and his wayward family is a horde of bitter enemies - the eerie Sheathwing, Earl of Beetles, the warlike nuns of Étranges Cadeaux, M'Lin the ape, Orobus the serpent, the terrifying Mater Moribund and the sinister child-spies Spackle and Peut - united in their desire to bring the king's troiubled reign to a bloody end.But it's the arrival of a mysterious outsider into the midst of the beleaguered Scarabold's court that seems to offer a semblance of hope. The stranger's name is Watborn and he is a birdcatcher - strong, silent, he will infiltrate the royal family for a purpose that is all of his own . . .As fiendishly-armed warriors gather beneath the walls, the battle for London, its body and its soul is about to begin - and who will be left unscathed at the field's end?

"Why does [the] rainy, cold, gray city [of London] capture so many imaginations? Could its very unreliability hold the key to its longevity? The detectives are joined by their boss Raymond Land and some of their most disreputable friends, each an argumentative and unreliable expert in their own dodgy field. Each character gives us a short tour of odd buildings, odder characters, lost venues, forgotten disasters, confusing routes, dubious gossip, illicit pleasures, and hidden pubs. They make all sorts of connections and show us why it's almost impossible to separate fact from fiction in London"--

Arthur Bryant and John May--and their team of proud eccentrics in the Peculiar Crimes Unit--have been given only one week to hunt down a murderer they've already caught once, but who somehow escaped from a locked room and killed one of their best and brightest. Facing a shutdown, Bryant and May, men of opposite methods, learn that their nemesis, expertly disguised, has struck again--and now he is luring them down into the vast labyrinth of tunnels and dark shadows of the London Underground. But soon they will discover a fresh mystery--one as bizarre as anything they have ever faced.

The Peculiar Crimes Unit is no more--disbanded, finished, kaput. After years of defying the odds and infuriating their superiors, detectives Arthur Bryant and John May have finally crossed the line. While Bryant takes to his bed, his bathrobe, and his esoteric books, the rest of the team takes to the streets looking for new careers--until one of them stumbles upon a gruesome murder. Now the Unit is back for an encore performance--in a rented office with no computer network, no legal authority, and a broken toilet. They've got until the end of the week to solve a mystery with links to gangland crime, the 2012 London Olympics, and a half-man, half-stag creature that's carrying off young women. It's the kind of case that Bryant and May live to solve . . . and it could be the one that finally kills them.

"Traditional mystery buffs with a taste for the offbeat will relish British author Fowler's wonderful second contemporary whodunit featuring the Peculiar Crimes Unit and its elderly odd couple, Arthur Bryant and John May."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)How can an elderly recluse drown in a chair in her otherwise dry basement? That's what John May and Arthur Bryant of London's Peculiar Crimes Unit set out to discover in a city rife with shady real estate developers, racist threats, dodgy academicians, and someone dangerously obsessed with Egyptian mythology. Linking them all is an evil lurking in London's vast and forgotten underground river system-a killer with the eerie ability to strike anywhere, anytime, without leaving a clue. It's a subterranean case of secrets, lies, and multiple murder that defies not only the law, but reason itself. Can Bryant and May bring a killer to the surface and stop the dark tide of murder before it pulls them under, too?"A clever twist on the traditional police procedural . . . The real thrill here is the delightful duo in the starring roles, two fresh and unusual characters who manage to breathe new life into an established genre in which it's getting harder and harder to find anything genuinely fresh."-Booklist "Humorous, engaging."-Kirkus Reviews

She sees everything, but can never tell anyone... a wickedly compulsive thriller from the bestselling author of the Bryant & May series.

'The most consistently brilliant, entertaining and educational voice in contemporary British crime fiction, the utterly fabulous Christopher Fowler.' Cathi Unsworth, CRIMESQUADOne Sunday morning, the outspoken Speaker of the House of Commons steps out of his front door only to be crushed under a mountain of citrus fruit.

In Which Mr May Makes A Mistake And Mr Bryant Goes Into The DarkOn a rainy winter night outside a run-down nightclub in the wrong part of London, four strangers meet for the first time at 4:00am. A few weeks later the body of an Indian textile worker is found hanging upside down inside a willow tree on Hampstead Heath.

The house's owner - a penniless, dope-smoking aristocrat - is intent on selling the estate (complete with its own hippy encampment) to a secretive millionaire but the weekend has only just started when the millionaire goes missing and murder is on the cards.

99 forgotten authors, their forgotten books, and their unforgettable stories

Our story begins at the end of an investigation, as the members of London's Peculiar Crimes Unit race to catch a killer near London Bridge Station in the rain, not realising that they're about to cause a bizarre accident just yards away from the crime scene.

Soon there's a clear suspect in everyone's sights - the only thing that's missing is any scrap of evidence. As the detectives' disastrous investigation comes unstuck, the whole team gets involved in some serious messing about on the river.

In every detective's life there are cases that can't be discussed. This book presents eleven of these previously unseen investigations that required the collective genius and unique modus operandi of Arthur Bryant and John May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit - investigations that range from different times and a variety of places.

At the same time, several members of the PCU team reach dramatic turning points in their lives - but the most personal tragedy is yet to come, for as the race to bring down a cunning killer reaches its climax, Arthur Bryant faces his own devastating day of reckoning. 'I always said we'd go out with a hell of a bang,' warns Bryant.

And, as the legend has it, when the ravens leave, the nation falls... Soon it seems death is all around and Bryant and May must confront a group of latter-day bodysnatchers, explore an eerie funeral parlour and unearth the gruesome legend of Bleeding Heart Yard.

It's the late 1970s and 20-something Christopher Fowler is a film freak, obsessively watching lousy films in run-down fleapit cinemas.

Two small children are playing a game called 'Witch-Hunter'. They place a curse on a young woman taking lunch in a church courtyard and wait for her to die. An hour later the woman is indeed found dead inside St Bride's Church - a building that no-one else has entered.

The defenestration of a ruthless theatre impresario's young son was definitely not the best way to end the play's first night party. And the crime scene itself was most unusual: a locked bedroom, with no sign of forced entry, no prints or traces of blood, just a sinister, life-size puppet of Mr Punch lying on the floor.

They've been given just one week to find a killer they'd caught once before . Edging closer to what lies hidden beneath the city - and to the madness that is driving a man to murder - Bryant and May are about to uncover a mystery as bizarre as anything they have ever encountered .

A collection of five short stories by some of the best crimewriters around.

Christopher Fowler's memoir captures life in suburban London as it has rarely been seen: through the eyes of a lonely boy who spends his days between the library and the cinema, devouring novels, comics, cereal packets - anything that might reveal a story.

But then a headless body is found in a freezer, and on the perimeter of a massive construction site near King's Cross, a gigantic figure has been spotted - dressed in deerskin and sporting antlers made of knives and suddenly, with limited resources and very little time, the PCU are back in business...