The story starts with a ‘locked room’ murder- a woman is
killed in a locked park, accessible only to flat owners and the gardener. The
gardener doesn’t look good for the crime, but who else could have gotten in and
back out when there is only one key per flat owner? The crime is odd enough
that it lands in the laps of the Peculiar Crimes Unit.
Bryant and May are the old codgers who are the heart of the
PCU. May plays straight man to Bryant’s over the top eccentricities. Bryant is
a little more eccentric than usual right now; the meds he took to overcome a
serious illness have left him with some delusions: he likes to have a chat now
and then with hallucinations of people both dead and alive (QEII is one of
them, as is Samuel Pepys). Thankfully, these hallucinations help him think
things through, rather than being detrimental.
Another murder in a park, with similarities to the first,
raises the specter of a serial killer. Because it, too, takes place in a park
in London, a higher up in the police department decides to shut down all the
city’s parks, and blames it on the PCU. If they would solve the murders, he’d
reopen the parks. He seeks to gain monetarily if the parks can be privatized
and locked. But the murders go on. Can the PCU solve them before the case is
taken from them and given to the regular police force, and they are shut down
for good? More bodies pile up- including those of suspects- as more and more
pressure is put on the PCU.
While this is I think the 14th novel in the
series, it is the first one that I have read. I thought from the description
that the Peculiar Crimes Unit would be about supernatural crimes, rather like
the Rivers of London series. It seems that they are not, but I am sure I’ll be
picking up more of the series as I have become quite fond of the staff of the
PCU, including Crippen the staff cat. What other police unit has a secret
tunnel entrance through a bakery, a tunnel that has a medieval sarcophagus in
it? I loved this book. Five stars.
The above is an affiliate link. If you click through and buy something- anything- Amazon will give me a few cents.
I received this book free from the Amazon Vine program in return for an honest review.
Neither of these things influenced my review.
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