What do You think about Full Dark House (2005)?
This has got to be the most eclectic and strange pairing of detectives that you'll ever find in crime fiction. Bryant and May are introduced to us here in the first book of the Peculiar Crimes Unit. This strange crime unit is located in London. The time is actually 2005 (when the book was released), but it flips back to crimes in 1940 at the beginning of WWII and right during the Blitz. Bryant and May, when we meet them are old curmudgeonly detectives that have worked together in the Peculiar Crimes Units for six decades. They are each brilliant in their own way, and each compliments the other in their detective style. May is the practical one and Bryant is the nerdy, unorthodox and the one who firmly believes in the occult and in magic. This book covers these two old detectives as they solve their first case together (during the war) and their last case in the present day. A very strange murder occurs in an old London theatre called The Palace. Somehow the two crime sprees that occur in the book are connected, even though there is a 60 year break between them. I enjoyed the premise and I liked the characters, but I found the book very confusing to read at times. And there was far too much theatre-lore in it to my taste. It was hard to get caught up in the mystery and thrill because of the constant switching back and forth. This could be an interesting premise for a detective series, and I'm presuming that the author's writing skills will improve with each additional book, but I'm not sure that I'll be reading any more in this series.
—Shirley Schwartz
tChristopher Fowler can write an interesting, intelligent, informative book. tFULL DARK HOUSE is set in London in both the present and during the blitz in November1940. It begins with the destruction of a building housing the Peculiar Crimes Unit, part of the North London Police Department. Only one person, Detective Arthur Bryant, was known to have been in the building. What remains were found were buried. Among the attendees was his longtime partner, Detective John May and Detective Sergeant Janice Longbright. John, especially, was upset that the police department wasn’t doing enough to find the person or persons who set off the bomb. The police, on the other hand, were more concerned with curbing the gang violence in the neighborhood.tJohn thought back to when he first met Arthur, when they were both in their early twenties. Their first case was the unusual death of a dancer in a racy version of Orpheus in the Underworld. Within days, others associated with the show were killed or disappeared. One thing the deaths had in common was they happened during bomb attacks when the city was in blackout.tI figured out part of the ending of the current part of the story. I did not do so with the 1940 section. I think it was too contrived and parts of it seemed totally impossible. tOne of the best parts of FULL DARK HOUSE are the descriptions of what life was like during the Blitz: The damage to the city and its residents and how the survivors coped. A second highpoint are the descriptions of both the old theater, once home to D’Oyly Carte Gilbert and Sullivan productions. It provides a lot of wit: “Helene...had a smile so false she could have stood for Parliament.” “The young detective possessed that peculiar ability more common to elderly men, which produces negative energy around electrical equipment, turning even the most basic appliances into weapons of destruction.”tIt predicts the economic future: “The days of the British owning everything on their terms is coming to an end. Future fortunes will be made with the involvement of international cartels such as ours.”tThe book was a fast read. It could easily have been somewhat shorter without losing any of the story or effect. tI really don’t like books with short chapters. I think it insults the intelligence of the readers as well as wastes a lot of paper. I automatically lower my rating for such books.
—Judie
Well, hm.This book was recced to me for humor, which turns out not to be quite the case -- more irony and dark wit. Too dark for my current reading needs, which took it down a star subjectively, but well written, which added a star objectively. Quirky and eccentric without being cozy.Written in omniscient, with parallel tales taking place in two times -- Detectives Bryant and May's first case, occurring during the London Blitz, and their last, in the early 21st Century. The omniscient voice allows some interesting effects as the tale not only alternates eras q.s. by chapter units, but adds illuminating asides in lines and paragraphs jumping back and forth in time summing up assorted bits of intervening information which helps stitch the parts together. Which a writer can do in omniscient, but not in tight third. While I find omniscient more emotionally distancing than tight third, no question one can get good breadth out of it, properly handled.Someone is knocking off cast members of a lurid production of the operetta Orpheus while German bombs fall on London, and the newbie detectives must pursue justice for the few inside the labyrinthine building while thousands are dying outside; this part is a pretty good historical novel, among other things. 60 years later, something from that first case comes back to haunt the aged pair.For whatever reason, I seem to be running across a slew of recent British works that appear to want to recapture an older generation, or something from it that is now missed -- not only this, but the TV series New Tricks, and the character of Detective Inspector Nightingale from Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series. Is this a Thing in Britain at the moment? Or just an artifact of my own selections?The tale starts dark and gets darker, but lightens up toward the end, rewarding the persistent reader. The grimdark almost lost me about a third through, but I peeked at the end for reassurance that I was not to be perpetually punished for my reading efforts, and slogged on. Destroyed the puzzle aspect of the tale, a disservice I suppose, but I don't read mysteries for the puzzles, but rather, for the characters and sometimes settings, which here held my interest fairly well. I might follow up sometime just to see what the writer does with this setup.Ta, L.
—Lois Bujold
