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Bryant & May: Peculiar London (Peculiar Crimes Unit)
Thinking of a jaunt to England? Let Arthur Bryant and John May, London's oldest police detectives, show you the oddities behind the city's façades in this tongue-in-cheek travel guide.
"The best fun is running all over the city with these amiable partners."-The New York Times Book Review, on Bryant & May: The Lonely Hour
It's getting late. I want to share my knowledge of London with you, if I can remember any of it.
So says Arthur Bryant. He and John May are the nation's oldest serving detectives. Who better to reveal its secrets? Why does this rainy, cold, gray city 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.
"The best fun is running all over the city with these amiable partners."-The New York Times Book Review, on Bryant & May: The Lonely Hour
It's getting late. I want to share my knowledge of London with you, if I can remember any of it.
So says Arthur Bryant. He and John May are the nation's oldest serving detectives. Who better to reveal its secrets? Why does this rainy, cold, gray city 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.
Editorial Reviews
Praise for Bryant & May: Peculiar London
"This is a fun last look at beloved characters for their devotees."-Publishers Weekly
Praise for Christopher Fowler's ingenious novels featuring the Peculiar Crimes Unit
"[Christopher Fowler's] ardent American following deserves to get much larger."-Janet Maslin, The New York Times
"Unbeatable fun . . . [Fowler] takes delight in stuffing his books with esoteric facts."-The Guardian
"Fowler, like his crime solvers, is deadpan, sly, and always unexpectedly inventive."-Entertainment Weekly
"Dazzling."-The Denver Post
"Thrilling."-Chicago Tribune
"Captivating."-The Seattle Times
"This is a fun last look at beloved characters for their devotees."-Publishers Weekly
Praise for Christopher Fowler's ingenious novels featuring the Peculiar Crimes Unit
"[Christopher Fowler's] ardent American following deserves to get much larger."-Janet Maslin, The New York Times
"Unbeatable fun . . . [Fowler] takes delight in stuffing his books with esoteric facts."-The Guardian
"Fowler, like his crime solvers, is deadpan, sly, and always unexpectedly inventive."-Entertainment Weekly
"Dazzling."-The Denver Post
"Thrilling."-Chicago Tribune
"Captivating."-The Seattle Times
Short Excerpt Teaser
1
A Big Lump of Rock & Other Stories
Arthur Bryant: If history consists of what you can remember, I'm buggered.
I had my glasses in my hand a minute ago and now they've gone. And I've put a bag of chips down somewhere. I'm up in the PCU's evidence room, where we keep the impounded booze and my notes on London. I say notes. Not everything is legible. We have mice.
For years my walking tours around the capital were simply an evening job attended by retired archivists, socially awkward loners and the kind of people who shout about Jesus in public. They required me to argue with strangers, something I previously had little interest in doing if it didn't involve arresting them.
Rather than let this lot go to waste I decided to share it with you on a sort of virtual tour. I don't actually know what a ‘virtual' tour is. John May tried explaining it but my attention drifted when he said ‘online.' By the time he got to the metaverse I was sound asleep. He set me up on a Zoom call with Scotland Yard last week but I somehow ended up on a Welsh radio programme about knitting.
I can't compete with the kind of passionate historians who know how many double-decker buses you can fit into the Albert Hall, but I'll be making some connections that may take you by surprise. They certainly took me by surprise, not always in a good way.
Let's see if I can get this thing working. I found a cassette recorder up here that used to belong to one of the Kray twins. I erased the old tapes; you don't want to listen to some bloke screaming for two hours.
London was established by the Romans as a trading centre and that's what it still is. Almost everything else is based around ceremony and entertainment. You won't find anything here about the Little Venice Dragon Boat Pageant, the Bethnal Green Morris Dancers, the Bastille Day Waiters' Race or the Dagenham Girl Pipers, who for some unearthly reason became the punchline to many London jokes. A lot of the ceremonial events that take place in London occur in various forms around the globe, so they're not covered. The only fun thing about Trooping the Colour is waiting for guards to pass out on hot days, and you can read about Westminster Abbey anywhere (although I bet not everyone knows it's a ‘Royal Peculiar,' meaning it belongs to the reigning monarch and not the Church). I'm more interested in exploring the obscure and unique. And I'm not sticking in loads of addresses. If you want those you can use the Googly-thing on your phone.
Now, your first question might be: why London?
It was the heart of the British Empire, the largest and wealthiest colonial power on the planet. There are only twenty-two countries in the world that we didn't invade. This expansion began in the 1600s and didn't come to a final end until 1997, when Hong Kong was handed back to China. So it makes sense to set our focus here.
The first thing you notice in Central London is the variety of buildings dating from so many different eras. When you wish to dignify a new town you first construct some municipal buildings based on classical Greek and Roman ideals. That's why there are still so many boring government offices that look like temples. Whitehall is a civil servants' Xanadu of Corinthian pillars and white stone pediments, especially when seen from across the lake in St James's Park. But grand buildings aren't enough to make you respect politicians. ‘The higher the buildings the lower the morals,' said Noël Coward with some prescience. They don't build mock temples anymore. They commission global architects to design giant glass willies.
Three things transformed London: the Reformation, the Great Fire, the railways and the Blitz.
John May: That's four things, Arthur.
Arthur Bryant: You're not on yet, John. Wait for your cue.
Actually there's another thing, the revolt of the Iceni, but London as such didn't really exist that far back.
John May: So, five things. And you have to hold both those keys down to record.
Arthur Bryant: I've used a cassette player before. Believe it or not, I was once a big fan of new technology.
John May: How am I only just hearing this? Why did you stop?
Arthur Bryant: I bought the K-Tel Bottle Cutter and nearly severed my lips. Let's push on.
For me there is always a gap between what you read about a city and what you feel when you walk around it. I shall attempt to bridge that gap. I've assembled these observations with the help of my partner here, Mr John May, who took out some of the stuff that didn't exist and removed the more libellous remarks so that I wouldn't get attacked in public again.
The problem with London is its past.
...
A Big Lump of Rock & Other Stories
Arthur Bryant: If history consists of what you can remember, I'm buggered.
I had my glasses in my hand a minute ago and now they've gone. And I've put a bag of chips down somewhere. I'm up in the PCU's evidence room, where we keep the impounded booze and my notes on London. I say notes. Not everything is legible. We have mice.
For years my walking tours around the capital were simply an evening job attended by retired archivists, socially awkward loners and the kind of people who shout about Jesus in public. They required me to argue with strangers, something I previously had little interest in doing if it didn't involve arresting them.
Rather than let this lot go to waste I decided to share it with you on a sort of virtual tour. I don't actually know what a ‘virtual' tour is. John May tried explaining it but my attention drifted when he said ‘online.' By the time he got to the metaverse I was sound asleep. He set me up on a Zoom call with Scotland Yard last week but I somehow ended up on a Welsh radio programme about knitting.
I can't compete with the kind of passionate historians who know how many double-decker buses you can fit into the Albert Hall, but I'll be making some connections that may take you by surprise. They certainly took me by surprise, not always in a good way.
Let's see if I can get this thing working. I found a cassette recorder up here that used to belong to one of the Kray twins. I erased the old tapes; you don't want to listen to some bloke screaming for two hours.
London was established by the Romans as a trading centre and that's what it still is. Almost everything else is based around ceremony and entertainment. You won't find anything here about the Little Venice Dragon Boat Pageant, the Bethnal Green Morris Dancers, the Bastille Day Waiters' Race or the Dagenham Girl Pipers, who for some unearthly reason became the punchline to many London jokes. A lot of the ceremonial events that take place in London occur in various forms around the globe, so they're not covered. The only fun thing about Trooping the Colour is waiting for guards to pass out on hot days, and you can read about Westminster Abbey anywhere (although I bet not everyone knows it's a ‘Royal Peculiar,' meaning it belongs to the reigning monarch and not the Church). I'm more interested in exploring the obscure and unique. And I'm not sticking in loads of addresses. If you want those you can use the Googly-thing on your phone.
Now, your first question might be: why London?
It was the heart of the British Empire, the largest and wealthiest colonial power on the planet. There are only twenty-two countries in the world that we didn't invade. This expansion began in the 1600s and didn't come to a final end until 1997, when Hong Kong was handed back to China. So it makes sense to set our focus here.
The first thing you notice in Central London is the variety of buildings dating from so many different eras. When you wish to dignify a new town you first construct some municipal buildings based on classical Greek and Roman ideals. That's why there are still so many boring government offices that look like temples. Whitehall is a civil servants' Xanadu of Corinthian pillars and white stone pediments, especially when seen from across the lake in St James's Park. But grand buildings aren't enough to make you respect politicians. ‘The higher the buildings the lower the morals,' said Noël Coward with some prescience. They don't build mock temples anymore. They commission global architects to design giant glass willies.
Three things transformed London: the Reformation, the Great Fire, the railways and the Blitz.
John May: That's four things, Arthur.
Arthur Bryant: You're not on yet, John. Wait for your cue.
Actually there's another thing, the revolt of the Iceni, but London as such didn't really exist that far back.
John May: So, five things. And you have to hold both those keys down to record.
Arthur Bryant: I've used a cassette player before. Believe it or not, I was once a big fan of new technology.
John May: How am I only just hearing this? Why did you stop?
Arthur Bryant: I bought the K-Tel Bottle Cutter and nearly severed my lips. Let's push on.
For me there is always a gap between what you read about a city and what you feel when you walk around it. I shall attempt to bridge that gap. I've assembled these observations with the help of my partner here, Mr John May, who took out some of the stuff that didn't exist and removed the more libellous remarks so that I wouldn't get attacked in public again.
The problem with London is its past.
...
