Bryant & May: Oranges and Lemons

OMG, Christopher Fowler is definitely my new, favorite author. I'd read my first Fowler a while back, and remembered that I had enjoyed it, so when I found Oranges and Lemons in a box I thought I'd give it a go.

Holy cow, I can hardly read a sentence without busting out laughing... and then struggle to find my place back on the page to begin reading again. What a pleasure this is. If for no other reason I haven't read anything truly great for a while.

Bryant and May remind me of Slough House, another favorite. In reading "Bryant begged the ceiling for strength," I can hear Jackson Lamb saying "Jesus wept".

Sample passage per above: exchange between senior detective Arthur Bryant and new intern Sidney Hargreaves:

"Let me explain something to show more you, Miss Hargreaves. Beat coppers are nurses. They have 'interpersonal skills.' Detectives are doctors. They search for the truth, as unpalatable as it often turns out to be. In 1963 Detective Chief Superintendent Jack Slipper tracked down the Great Train Robbers—"

"Before I was born," Hargreaves pointed out.

"So was Queen Marie of Romania but it doesn't mean you shouldn't know who she was."

"I don‘t know who she was."

Bryant begged the ceiling for strength. "While we rewrite history to include only the people we can be sure were around after the momentous advent of your birth, Miss Hargreaves, consider Slipper of the Yard. His imprimatur was stamped on every case he handled. The great detectives think differently because they develop a singular outlook. Share your ideas with everyone and you end up in a committee that achieves nothing."

"Perhaps we'll agree to disagree on that," Hargreaves observed.

"No, let's just disagree," said Bryant. show less

John May is slowly recovering from a gunshot wound, Arthur Bryant has disappeared and the PCU has been ordered dismantled, but when the Speaker of the House of Commons is seriously injured in a seeming accident that involves being buried under a bunch of fruit, the team is called back to investigate the man’s state of mind. However, the unit cannot just be left to its own devices, so the Home Office sends in an “observer” to keep an eye on things, and the team is also burdened with an unrequested “intern,” a young woman who is amazingly aggravating, however intelligent she may be…. The lovely conceit in this, the 19th Bryant & May novel, is that the attacker is following an old rhyming song that references various London show more churches and mentions specific attributes of each that the perpetrator uses to confuse matters. Of course, Arthur isn’t fooled - except that he is, in a very unexpected way. I didn’t see the end coming, which is always good in these books. Really, my only quibble is that as a child growing up in England, I *sang* this rhyme all the time, only I know it as “Orange and lemons,” not “oranges.” Annoyed me half to death, that did! Otherwise, as usual highly recommended, but best if you’ve read the whole series in order. show less

4.5
The Bells of St. Clements
Clement Danes stands all
Forlorn and destitute;
Bells that rang out yester-
morn today lie mute.
I hear children in my
mind all singing there;
But oranges are hard to
find and lemons rare.
Harold Adshead

This is how the book starts and everytime I open up the newest book from the Bryant and May series, I'm always afraid it will be the last. I sincerely hope this series never ends. They are such a wonderful combination of strange but not graphic crimes, humor, fantastic history and peculiar characters. Bryant has the most unusual personality and crime solving capabilities than any other detective in any book.

Here we learn the story behind the rhymes, which takes us to many other churches and the origins and show more meanings of these churches. We learn the history of the Strand and other areas in London.Catch up on the unusual characters that make up the peculiar crime unit and with Arthur visit some of his very strange sources. Plus, a new character whom I believe will fit in nicely.

As always it was a joy to spend time with the PCU.

ARC from Edelweiss show less

These are fun books, set in London, and what makes them fun is how the city of London is as much a character in this series and Bryant & May. This book is no exception. The Peculiar Crimes Unit is again at the brink of being shut down, but when an important politician is killed in a very inprobable way, the team is put back together. Of course, theres shenanigans, Bryant goes off on a tangent that ultimately helps the case, May is trying to figure out his life while recovering from a gun shot wound, and the team itself is just trying to figure out how to survive the department's shutdown and work around the observer...

I figured out the how fairly quickly, however, a few red herrings put me a different track of why. Its a fun addition show more and with a quirky team, and a brand new (smelly) cat added to the office. show less

I thought I was reading this book for the mystery, but I was wrong. This was a love song to London. Bryant’s encyclopedic mind gives us a lot of history about the churches in the Oranges and Lemons nursery rhyme. The mystery was convoluted. The PCU was as chaotic and dysfunctional as ever and I reached the end of the book with a couple of unanswered questions that I felt were a major part of the story. Am I sorry I read the book? No, I love London and I enjoyed Bryant’s view of the city. Do I want to read another Bryant and May mystery? I am not sure. I got some laughs out of the book, but mostly I just felt frustrated in the storyline.

The Peculiar Crimes Unit get resurrected (again). Readers are treated to a historical tour of London, this time it's the area around the Strand and High Holburn. The people and places of this story are outstanding, more interesting than the convoluted plot. The plots have come to be formulaic with a villain who has been mistreated by society.

Devilishly delightful mystery featuring the Peculiar Crimes Unit, who are after a serial killer who uses the old nursery rhyme "Oranges and lemons say the bells of St. Clement's..." as part of his M.O. Clever.