The Victoria Vanishes: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery
- ISBN13: 9780553589566
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Murder doesn’t get more peculiar than this. A lonely hearts killer is targeting middle-aged women at some of England’s most well-known pubs. What’s even more peculiar, Arthur Bryant happened to see the latest victim only moments before her death—at a pub torn down eighty years ago! It’s only the beginning of a case littered with clues that defy everything the veteran detectives know about the profiles of serial killers and the methodology of crime.
What do the Knights Templars, the secret history of English pubs, and the discovery of an astounding religious relic have to do with this recent crime spree? More important, do the Peculiar Crimes Unit’s two living legends have enough life left in them to stop a murderous conspiracy…and a deadly cupid targeting one of their own?
Not as good as the early Fowlers but better than the last. A slow start but picks up, all in all great fun for a cold night.
Rating: 3 / 5
This is the latest in the series and YOU MUST read them all!!! They are very interesting mysterys that include alot of historic information regarding London from pre world war 2 until the present. This current one has so much info about Pubs.
Rating: 5 / 5
If you have even the slightest interest in London, England, or subtle British humor, then Christopher Fowler’s characters, along with a wonderful and preposterous mystery, are to be found in this “must read” tome.
Rating: 5 / 5
Once I got over the British way of writing (punctuation is different and some phrases and slang is unique), I really liked the where he was going. The characters come to life and you’re rooting for them all the way through their crisis within a crisis. They are threatening to close down their Special Crimes Unit just as they are getting close to the identity of the serial murderer. They are literaly booted out of their office and left to do their investigation in a living room! But they are good. The murderer is found- even with a disappearing Pub!
Rating: 5 / 5
In popular London pubs, middle age women simply collapse and die. Initially there is no evidence of foul play; especially as all the witnesses insist nothing happened except the woman dropping dead and pathologist Oswald Finch recently died so no follow-up occurred.
Everything changes when Peculiar Crimes Unit senior detective Arthur Bryant claims he was with victim Carol Wynley just before she died outside the Victoria Cross; an edifice torn down over eight decades ago in 1925. Since the elderly sleuth misplaced Finch’s urn containing his last remains, everyone even his partner Senior Detective John May worries about his senility. Still they investigate while the brass considers closing down PCU starting with the sale of their building and the addition of by the standard operating procedures Sergeant Jack Renfield.
The latest PCU police procedural (see TEN SECOND STAIRCASE and WHITE CORRIDOR) is a fabulous single sitting thriller that hooks the audience throughout the exhilarating story line as fans like the cops will wonder if this is an urban fantasy or Arthur suffers from senility. The need to know what is going on makes for a delightful tale as the PCU members visit pubs and uncover a religious relic that frightens and elates their blood while beginning to connect the dots of a murderous conspiracy. Christopher Fowler provides a strong entry that lives up to the peculiar label of this sleuthing unit.
Harriet Klausner
Rating: 5 / 5