Bryant & May: Oranges and Lemons
A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
“The most delightfully, wickedly entertaining duo in crime fiction.”—The Plain Dealer
When a prominent politician is crushed by a fruit van making a delivery, the singular team of Arthur Bryant and John May overcome insurmountable odds to reunite the PCU and solve the case in this brainy new mystery from acclaimed author Christopher Fowler.
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 Land, is tending his daffodils on the Isle of Wight and senior detectives Arthur Bryant and John May are out of commission—May has just undergone surgery for a bullet wound and Bryant has been missing for a month. What's more, their old office in King’s Cross is being turned into a vegetarian tapas bar.
Against impossible odds, the team is reassembled and once again what should be a simple case becomes a lunatic farrago involving arson, suicide, magicians, academics and a race to catch a killer with a master plan involving London churches. Joining their team this time is Sidney, a young woman with no previous experience, plenty of attitude—and a surprising secret.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Fowler's outstanding 18th Peculiar Crimes Unit mystery (after 2019's The Lonely Hour), budget reductions have led to the disbanding of the PCU, a "specialized London police division with a remit to prevent or cause to cease any acts of public affright or violent disorder," but not for long. The unit's two senior detectives, Arthur Bryant and John May, are pressed back into service after the Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Claremont, is nearly killed when, in an apparent accident, crates of oranges and lemons fell out of a parked van and toppled onto him. That this incident occurred near St. Clement Danes, a London church linked to those fruits in the old English nursery rhyme, leads Home Office higher-ups to fear that Claremont was targeted. Even as Bryant and May try to figure out how the so-called accident could have been planned, more assaults echoing the nursery rhyme occur, all fatal. Fowler again tests his leads with a bizarre series of crimes while devising a satisfying resolution. This long-running series remains as vital as ever.
