Bryant & May - Oranges and Lemons

This book in this series made me a little sad. The author describing his protagonists getting sick and the author dying in real life . The book as always is another excellent adventure of the two lead detectives and their rather misfit but dictated and loyal team. I guess the way to sum this series . If you think of it as a Scooby Doo for geriatrics.

This story dots about a bit but is still worth getting into. A usual mine of information about London woven into the story and a twist at the end of it.

The PCU are at their best when their backs are against the wall; reunited for one last case, they have a point to prove. Somebody is killing to the old oranges and lemons nursery rhyme. Like the majority of nursery rhymes, it’s origins are murky and, in this particular instance, embroiled in London history. And there you have what makes the Bryant and May novels such a feast. It is easy to get tired of London. Commuting day in and day out can drag you down and London often appears to be a soulless and uncaring urbanity. But no city has a history as bloody and thrilling as London. We all need reminding of that from time to time. I particularly enjoyed the interspersed walking tour chapters courtesy of Mr Bryant. Oh what a joy it would be to go on such a tour.And Bryant himself is in top form. The years just seem to fall off him. May is recovering from his bullet wound and Raymond Land is hankering for his bungalow on the Isle of Wight.I loved the story and the abundance of London history and legend had me stopping at regular junctures to hit the internet. Having read every Bryant and May novel other than the latest short story collection, I found this to be the best to date by some margin. Like citrus fruit, it is fresh and sharp.

No sign of staleness in this 19th book ( ! )..that in itself is a real achievement . For all the up to date settings and high tech stuff, at heart it really is quite a traditional crime fiction book. There many references to older books and a very good way of seeing how Generation Z views not just Millennials but also some OAP's !!Maybe it is time to get the Home Office to stop trying to close down the PCU and move on to a new back story . Perhaps also a bit of a shame that the prices seem to have risen a great deal on all the books : surely Kindle overheads haven't gone up that much .

I've been a fan of this series of books from the very start but I admit that some of them have been not quite as good as others. The last few have, for me, not been great, but I'm delighted to say that "Oranges and Lemons" is absolutely brilliant, and one of the very best in the series.The story opens with the team in disarray following the events of the previous novel. The unit are once again under scrutiny from on high and are being evicted from their office. Then the incidents start: a bookshop is burned to the ground, its owner having apparently committed suicide and set fire to his business, and the speaker of the House is involved in a strange accident involving a delivery of fruit. And then the events escalate...I'm delighted to say that Christopher Fowler is on excellent form here. The book is one of the funniest in the series, and I loved the characters once again (in the previous book, "The Lonely Hour", some of them just didn't seem right, like they weren't themselves), and I adored Sidney. The novel races along, and I found it unputdownable, finishing it in a couple of days.For me, it's up there with "The Burning Man", "The Memory of Blood", and "White Corridor". An absolute high point in the series. Fantastic!

At the beginning of this book the Peculiar Crimes Unit is no more. John May is in hospital recovering from a bullet wound, Arthur Bryant is trying to find himself (so are the rest of the Unit), Raymond Land is growing nettles at his retirement bungalow, and everyone else is waiting to be re-assigned. Then an attack on The Speaker of Parliament means their unique skills are needed for one more task. So the two Daves cobble together temporary offices and two new unit members are recruited: Strangeways, a balance-challenged cat, and Sidney, a young woman whose wokeness gives Arthur ample opportunity to hone his talent for delivering non-pc gems.The job soon expands to become a murder hunt as victims are targeted by a killer who is following the old rhyme of ‘Oranges and Lemons’.I love this series – the inter-play between the members of the team, the laugh out loud moments, and all the historical facts woven into the stories.Even if some of the moments are stretching credulity a bit, it doesn’t matter. The characters feel real, it’s like dropping back into visit old friends. I even felt a little sorry for the killer.Can’t wait for the next book.

The PCU is dismantled again and immediately reconstituted again. May is recovering from a gunshot wound which leaves Bryant to offend people and theorise to his hearts delight, I find him a bit wearing. The others bumble around trying to find a serial killer whose victims appear unrelated except by the nursery rhyme and who leads them a fantastical dance of deception fooling everyone bar Bryant as he does not use computers. In the end a bizarre investigation of a remarkably competent killer not least to arrange all but one of the murders near the appropriate churches and in order! I am not sure why I like reading these books as they are exasperating at times but always entertaining.

Took a while to get into. Don’ think I shall read any of the others as too rambling for my liking.