On a spring morning in London’s Strand, the Speaker of the House of Commons is nearly killed by a van unloading oranges and lemons for the annual St. Clement Danes celebration. It’s an absurd near-death experience, but the government is more interested in investigating the Speaker’s state of mind just prior to his accident. The task is given to the Peculiar Crimes Unit—the only problem being that the unit no longer exists. Its chief, Raymond...

"London's most brilliant but unconventional detectives, Arthur Bryant and John May, must plumb the depths of a particularly murky mystery. The Peculiar Crimes Unit faces its most baffling case yet--and if Bryant and May can't rise to the challenge, the entire unit may go under. Near the Tower of London, along the River Thames, the body of a woman has been discovered chained to a stone post and left to drown. Curiously, only one set of footprints leads...

"When a man is found hanging upside down inside a willow tree on Hampstead Heath, surrounded by a baffling assortment of occult objects, the Peculiar Crimes Unit is called in to investigate. Was this a botched Satanic ritual pulled off by bored teenagers, a gang initiation, or the work of a mastermind with grander intentions? Bryant and May set off for answers and soon discover that London is a city steeped in blood and magic. When another body is...

Two of London's sharpest minds within the Peculiar Crimes Unit are faced with one of the most bizarre cases of their careers as an ill-timed death, a powerful curse, a crazy dowager, and a dead photographer lead them into a world of madness, codes, and the secret of London's strangest relic.

he odd couple of detection - the brilliant but cranky detectives of London's Peculiar Crimes Unit - return in a tense, atmospheric new thriller that keeps you guessing until the final page. This time Bryant and May are up against a series of bizarre murders that defy human understanding - and a killer no human hand may be able to stop. A mysterious stranger in outlandish Edwardian garb defaces a painting in the National Gallery. Then a guest at the...