Book Review: Bryant and May - Oranges and Lemons by Christopher Fowler

Bryant and May - Oranges and Lemons by Christopher Fowler

Published by Transworld

Publish date: 23 July 2020

* Thanks to Random House UK, Transworld Publishers and Netgalley for an ARC in return for an honest review.

This is the 19th and latest book in the Bryant & May series by Christopher Fowler and I'm guessing that the opening chaos and bizarre happenings are nothing new to this series!

The Speaker of the House of Commons steps out of his house and is crushed by crates of oranges and lemons. Of course this is going to be a case for the Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU)!

But the PCU had previously been disbanded - the staff have all been dismissed, one detective is recovering in hospital and another has gone missing.

The Peculiar Crimes Unit is reluctantly given a reprieve to solve one more case - a case which seems to mirror the old nursery rhyme 'Oranges and Lemons'.

A couple of new faces join the rest of the PCU team, a Home Office spy named Tim Floris and a precociously brilliant Generation Z intern named Sidney Hargreaves.

Now this is the first Bryant & May book that I've read and I knew that it was the latest in a long series so I was slightly worried that I may feel out of odds with the characters since I'm a newbie to the books. I needn't have worried, this book works well as a standalone, although there's no way that I'm leaving it there - I intend to go back and start at book one as soon as possible.

I'm absolutely crazy for the characters already - especially the bumbling but brilliant Arthur Bryant. This anachronistic old fella is a tramp-disguised genius. But I'm not at all sure why some of his peers doubt him so much since he clearly has an impeccable track record at solving peculiar crimes. Maybe they're more dismayed by the way he goes about his sleuthing. He has an unlimited supply of 'helpful' and eccentric sources, my favourite from 'Oranges and Lemons' being the faded, jaded magician Dudley Salterton, who, in my opinion, would make a great main character in a book of his own.

I admit that I would usually shy away from any book that was considered 'Humorous' but 'Oranges and Lemon's is actually pretty hysterical. I laughed aloud at almost every page. Most of the humour comes from Arthur Bryant's wry observations. And I was particularly tickled when he added text speak abbreviations into his speech, FFS!

Christopher Fowler clearly knows London and I really enjoyed all the secret and obscure London history throughout the book. Setting is a huge part of why I choose a particular book to read and if I had any thoughts that London-based books had all been done already, then I clearly need to re-educate myself - Christopher Fowler's London is up there with Charles Dickens, Ronald Camberton and Alexander Baron.

A fantastic read but even better, an introduction to a new series for me to discover.