4.5 stars. Well this was significantly better than the first in the series. No flashbacks, set in the present, but with loads of really interesting London history. It helps of course that I myself live in a late Victorian terrace house, originally built for railway workers, as were the houses in the story. I really enjoyed the dynamic between Bryant and May and loved the fact they ended the book double dating!

Complex & absorbing with well-drawn characters and dry humor. Great combination!Quotes that caught my ears on my second reading:"Bryant did the heavy thinking, May did the heavy lifting.""If it hadn't been for the war, he'd never have met people from other countries, although, of course he had to kill them. Before 1940 the average English family had traveled less than nine miles from their home. Many got beyond the end of their street."The following passage is a wonderful example of the social h...

This second book of the aptly named Peculiar Crimes Unit series featuring Arthur Bryant and John May involves more odd death in London (truly a character of the novel itself) and more esoteric knowledge about the city and its history than you might want to shake a stick at. Since it happens to rain during most of the novel, shaking a stick wouldn't accomplish much.Aside from solving this mysterious death---is it a murder?---Bryant and May must also find a way to justify keeping the unit that has...

Another wonderful read by Mr. Fowler, featuring his two 'elderly' London detectives, who should be retired, but instead work for the Peculiar Crimes Unit which investigates crimes no one else wants. (Or those which might embarrass or compromise those who are rich, powerful, celebrated, etc.) The strength of this series, IMO, is/are the characters, all of whom are cleverly presented in supple, succinct measure, and the settings which include musty museums, alleys and backyards, creaky old buildin...

The premise grabs you: an elderly woman who never leaves her house is found dead in her house, perfectly dry and dressed for a party with lungs full of river water. How can it be? With no clues to go on, it's the perfect opportunity for a couple of grizzly, crabby octogenarian detectives of the Peculiar Crimes Unit.The two predictably uncover deeply covered clues and meet odd people, like witches along the way in solving this impossible mystery.This novel was not exactly my cup of tea. If you wa...

It took me quite a long while to finish this book and to finally get involved in the inquiry, not because of the book, the plot, the characters or the setting, but because of the dreadful stuff, which was taking place in Paris, while I was trying to read. So again, but by no fault of the author, I found it difficult to follow the plot, along the depths and meanders of the Thames and the London sewer system. Once I managed to get involved, I had to finish. It feels like this is going to be an int...

Arthur Bryant and John May met in London in November 1940. Both young men were assigned to the PCU – the Peculiar Crimes Unit – to deal with the strangest of crimes and, though they were young and had little experience, they found themselves pretty much running the place while so many resources and so many men were caught up in the war.Years later, when they were both quite elderly and much had changed they were still working together at the PCU. They were very different men but they worked toge...

The Water Room is the second in the Bryant & May series and it is a gem. I read a couple of later ones and decided to start at the beginning; the series is giving me great pleasure and this s the best I have read so far.The plot is, as usual, slightly bonkers but in a very believable way, somehow. Arthur and John are asked by two different friends to look into two apparently unrelated matters. Things become very convoluted as the Peculiar Crimes Unit swings into its unique sort of action and a v...

I enjoyed this one better than the first of the series, probably because I've got to know the main characters and setting. I didn't understand everything (the technicalities of the London underground rivers and flood drainage were a bit complicated, especially as I finished it in a red eye flight from Asia!) but that didn't spoil anything for me. I like the humour and style of writing very much, so I think I'm going to get hooked on the whole series! Thanks, Claude, for the recommendation!

I'm working my way through these Peculiar Crime Unit mysteries, and enjoying them immensely.The star character is Detective Arthur Bryant, an elderly eccentric who is unfailingly rude to everybody and regularly consults psychics, witches, and other unconventional types.Detective John May, Bryant's partner, is less unhinged, but still willing to go the extra weird mile.The rest of the PCU are a group of misfits, including a guy with a spatial perception problem, meaning he trips over everything.T...

The Water Room by Christopher Fowler is the second book in his Peculiar Crimes Unit series. It stars John May and Arthur Bryant, the octogenarian leaders of a unit of detectives who handle all the cases that the regular detective forces won't touch or can't solve. This one begins with a simple question: How can an elderly woman drown, fully dressed to go out, in her otherwise dry basement? Their search will lead them through a maze of shady real estate men, racist threats, shy academic types wit...

Well that was fun! Not for the multiple victims, mind - but being along for the ride as the crazy detective duo attempt to solve what appears to be 3 completely unrelated murders. They aren't called the Peculiar Crimes Unit for nothing! This ranks up there for peculiar, that's for sure. Other than living on the same street seeing how the murders could be related at all was the real mystery. It takes a person who likes to think outside the box to see fragments of ideas and actions that come toget...

The Peculiar Crimes Unit of London's Metropolitan Police handles some very peculiar crimes indeed. For example, in The Water Room, we have the case of an elderly woman who drowns in river water in her basement, but there is no water in the room and no evidence that the body had been moved. How did the woman's dead body, dressed to go out shopping and seated on a chair in her basement, end up with filthy river water in her throat? That's just the kind of question for which Arthur Bryant and John

I wasn't overly impressed with the first book in the series, but I like Fowler well enough to give it another try. Again though, the aging detectives failed to wow me. Nothing technically is wrong with the book, it's got a good mystery, the writing is solid, the characters are pretty well developed...it just lacks that certain something. Again with this one, partly is it the narrator's fault, Tom Goodman's reading is just kind of off, his impressions are off, his accents are strange, his british...

Reading (listening,actually) mystery stories has left me with quite a bit of knowledge of London’s rivers. This and Aaronovitch.I enjoyed this novel, but I missed the flashbacks of the previous story. Not sure that just two elderly policemen were as intriguing main characters.

Christopher Fowlers excellent Bryant & May series continues with “The Water Room”. I first discovered this series after winning one in a contest and fell in love with these two octogenarian gentlemen immediately. Arthur Bryant and John May are London’s two longest serving detectives and lead the Met’s Peculiar Crimes Unit. Delightfully eccentric and filled with quirks and idiosyncrasies, they lead us on an intriguing path filled with wit, charm and originality. Fowlers novels manage to please th...

I have fallen in love with two elderly detectives from the British "Peculiar Crimes Unit"-as created by Christopher Fowler. The Water Room is not only charmingly written, it has one of the best mysteries I've read in a long time, actually unusual and interesting in itself, aside from the book's humor and delightful characters. The book manages to be Victorian, early twentieth century and modern at the same time. It is a good novel as well as a mystery which is not something I can always say, eve...

Aw, this was great. These two are insane.Who knew there were rivers under London? Actually made me get another book, London Under: The Secret History Beneath the Streets. Really enjoyed this.

And so, with great expectations, I return to the world of Arthur Bryant and John May, the aging detectives from London Metropolitan Police’s Peculiar Crimes Unit.With the events of Full Dark House , I found the series a very pleasant surprise. The Water Room develops them further. Whereas the first book introduced them in their most recent reincarnation (they did appear in some of Christopher’s other writing previously) and Full Dark House was mainly about their first case back in 1940’s Londo...

Installment #2 in this series featuring the Peculiar Crimes Unit finds our heroes, Bryant and May (and the other people in the PCU) trying to solve the death of a woman drowned in her basement. Sounds straightforward, right? However, the dead woman was completely dry, sitting in a chair, in a dry basement. If that was the only problem for them to deal with, the book would have definitely been a lot shorter -- but add in a death by saran wrap, arson, and a fellow buried alive by his own truck. An...