Another series where I’m really glad I came back! The plot was very clever and Bryant and May, a great team.

Third in the Bryant & May mystery series and revolving around two detectives with their own way of doing things in London. The case of the Seventy-Seven Clocks took place in 1973.My TakeIt's a Gilbert and Sullivan opera all on its own, beginning with a clever but ruthless man who intended to ensure his family's wealth through the centuries. It's also an opportunity for Fowler to take the piss out of the upper classes and skewer the middle-class for their own greed and ambition.It is curious how

This is, I think, the third time I've read this and I certainly appreciate it more this time, perhaps because I'm able to let the narration have its way.The best way to summarise the plot is from the back of the book:"A mysterious stranger in outlandish Edwardian garb defaces a painting in the Naational Gallery. Then a guest at the Savoy Hotel is fatally bitten by what appears to be a marshland snake.... Art vandalism, an exploding suspect, pornography, rat poison, Gilbert and Sullivan musicals,...

Seventy-Seven Clocks by Christopher Fowler is a part of Fowler's Bryant & May series. Bryant and May are members of the current day London police force but they are in many ways throwbacks to the Victorian era. The novels read like Agatha Christie/Sherlock Holmes through a contemporary filter. They-the books and the heroes-are funny and sweet and eccentric.In Seventy-Seven Clocks, the series moves back in time to the beginning of the PCU (Peculiar Crime Unit)-a unit formed specifically to both s...

A very enjoyable read, mostly, I think, because of Sam, a totally likeable young woman, who kept me interested. I must say that the more I read, the more totally unlikely the whole story appeared and yet, I kept going to the very end. So there it is, a totally unbelievable story line, but somehow quite a fascinating one.

The third Bryant and May detective mystery, this one is set in 1973. An eccentric man in Edwardian garb defaces a Waterhouse in the National Gallery. A series of grotesque murders, with a wide variety of modus operandis – snakebite, explosion, throat-cutting, hallucinogenic – take place. The Edwardian fellow and his brother are killed. A lawyer dies trying to pick up a folder of blackmail materials. Many more deaths pile up as the detectives realize that someone is picking off members of the Whi...

For some reason I equate these books to television programmes in my mind.“Old Dark House” -“Scooby-Doo” “The Water Room” - a documentary about London’s rivers and this one - “Midsomer Murders” a very’ British’ murder series."Seventy-Seven Clocks" is hard to review without giving out spoilers, so I will do my best. Firstly, it was vast improvement on the previous “Water Room”, which felt at times like a school lecture.The prologue is quiet simply wonderful and well worth a re-read.Plotting is goo...

I love this author, love the senior citizen characters, and the truly odd crimes. I was concerned how Fowler would keep the series going with the heros being so old, but this is a story being told to a reporter. It really doesn't matter what order you read this series as it goes back and forth. This is the fourth book for me, and I will read all of them eventually.

3.5 stars. The complexity of the plots and London setting with loads of historical details attract me to this series. The main characters remain interesting and eccentric, but the rest of the cast in this one is either irritating or bland. The plot is extremely intricate and the various possibilities endless to determine the motive for the killings. Enjoyed it very much.

I really want to like this and I don't really know why it took me a month to read, but I just didn't care about the, what felt like, 50 different plot lines. Normally I love the idea of multiple story lines where everything is tied together in the end. Maybe there were just too many, maybe there were too many characters, none of which, including the leads, I cared for/about. I was intrigued in the beginning by the destruction of the painting and ultimately I still don't understand why that even

Seventy Seven Clocks is the third book in the Bryant and May series set in London. In this outing, set at the tail end of 1973, the Peculiar Crimes Unit is investigating a set of bizarre deaths linked to the wealthy, aristocratic, haughty Whitstable family and a sub-group of the guild of watchmakers. Everything about the case is peculiar, which suits Bryant and May, though its political ramifications and its coincidence with moving offices is a nuisance. The involvement of a troubled hotel recep...

Another twisty, turny, upside-downy novel featuring two of my favorite literary characters: the irascible, frumpy, let's-look-at-this-thing-sideways Arthur Bryant, and his cohort, fellow investigator, and suave, yet with a Felix Unger-like persona, John May. I love these two guys!(This one's set in the mid-1970's and omgoodness they got the time right! I was there.)London detectives, affixed to the PCU, or Peculiar Crimes Unit, they are given the crimes no one wants to touch. Like those involvin...

Seventy Seventy Clocks is the third book in the Bryant and May series and although I enjoyed reading the book with its outlandish plot twists and turns and ending I did find this book to be a bit to far fetched (when compared to the others that I have read) for my liking, but it was a very enjoyable read all the same. I think this is due to the writing which is always interesting to read and is often rather witty and clever. I did like all the little comments about the differences between life i...

Christopher Fowler's Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU) series is a favorite with my husband who has read about half of them. (There are twenty books in the series so far.) Periodically, he recommends the reading of them to me and I say that I will get to them. As a matter of fact, I have read two of them; the first one, Full Dark House, I read in 2014 and the second one, The Water Room, I read in 2017. Now it's four years later and I decided it was probably time for number three. So on to Seventy-seven...

SEVENTY-SEVEN CLOCKS (Police Procedural-London-1973) – GFowler, Christopher – 3rd in seriesDoubleday, 2005- UK HardcoverArthur Bryant and John May are members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit and their newest case is a perfect fit. A man dies from Cottonmouth snake venom in the lobby of the Savoy; another in blown up by a bomb make of silver and gold and a third from rat poison in face powder. All the deaths relate back to the wealthy Whitstable family, and the Alliance of Eternal Light.*** I absolut...

By this third book in the series, the two main characters have really grown on me. Cranky, crumpled curmudgeon, Bryant, and his partner, the elegant, suave May—both past their prime. They're perfect for the Peculiar Crimes Unit. "Peculiar," as explained in the first chapter, as needing "specialized" knowledge has now become "peculiar" in the sense of weird or inexplicable. This title is filled with fascinating bits of information about London, Gilbert and Sullivan, the Savoy, the artisan guilds

Jerry’s difficult personality had encouraged her parents to enrol her at a small private school in Chelsea which enjoyed a fine reputation as a clearinghouse for the problem children of the comfortable classes…Set in London, December 1973, in the lead up to Christmas, the Heath Government is under Union attack by rolling strikes, the Savoy Hotel is host to delegates from the “Common Market” (later EU) and the Peculiar Crimes Unit of the Metropolitan Police are brought in to solve a series of biz...

3.5 stars. This one's about a Bryant and May case from the early 1970s. If anyone guesses whodunnit on this one, I will be beyond surprised!

A very entertaining read and charming characters. Only three stars because although it is very well written, the story is extremely far-fetched!

Octogenarian detectives Arthur Bryant and John May are back in their third outing in the Peculiar Crimes Unit series and, while set in 1973, readers get a look back to discover how the pair became partners during World War II. As usual, the crimes that they are called upon to solve are peculiar indeed--a lawyer is found dead in a hotel lobby from a snake bite, a pre-Raphaelite painting in the National Gallery is vandalized by a man in Edwardian garb, a suspect explodes, make-up becomes toxic, an...