Full Dark House Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B0087O5Y5C | Format: EPUB
Full Dark House Description
In Full Dark House, Christopher Fowler tells the story of both the first and last case of an unlikely pair of crime fighters - and how along the way they changed the face of detection.
A present-day bombing rips through London and claims the life of 80-year-old detective Arthur Bryant. For his partner John May, it means the end of a partnership that lasted over half a century and an eerie echo back to the Blitz of World War II when they first met. Desperately searching for clues to the killer's identity, May finds his old friend's notes of their very first case and becomes convinced that the past has returned ... with a killing vengeance.
It begins when a dancer in a risqu? new production of Orpheus in Hell is found without her feet. Suddenly, the young detectives are plunged in a bizarre gothic mystery that will push them to their limits - and beyond. For in a city shaken by war, a faceless killer is stalking London's theaters, creating his own kind of sinister drama. And it will take Arthur Bryant's unorthodox techniques and John May's dogged police work to catch a criminal whose ability to escape detection seems almost supernatural - a murderer who even decades later seems to have claimed the life of one of them ... and is ready to claim the other.
Filled with startling twists, unforgettable characters, and a mystery that will keep you guessing, Full Dark House is a witty, heartbreaking, and all-too-human thriller about the hunt for an inhuman killer.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 13 hours and 24 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Recorded Books
- Audible.com Release Date: May 29, 2012
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B0087O5Y5C
Christopher Fowler has had a long and distinguished literary career. FULL DARK HOUSE is the tenth of his published novels. He has also written and published over 100 works of shorter fiction, most of which appear in nine different collections, as well as MENZ INSANA, a fine graphic novel. Fowler's work is quite diverse; while it may stray into the mystery, suspense or even dark fantasy genres, he is impossible to pigeonhole.
FULL DARK HOUSE is an excellent example of this. There are elements of mystery (ala Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie), police procedurals, horror, history and suspense aplenty here. There is also Fowler's trademark quirkiness. One never knows what to expect. So it is that while FULL DARK HOUSE is the first of a projected series of mysteries featuring Arthur Bryant and John May, it deals with their first, and last, case.
We learn over the course of FULL DARK HOUSE that Bryant and May have a long history together. They met up as the result of the establishment of the London Peculiar Crimes Unit in 1940, at the height of the German bombing of London. The founding of PCU occurred partly from necessity and partly for publicity. Given the frequency of the bombing to which the London populace was subjected, the actions of some of its citizenry became more and more bizarre, resulting in what was referred to with British understatement as "peculiar crimes." Bryant and May, assigned to the unit, became friends; their personal and professional relationship has lasted over 60 years, with Bryant's unorthodox methodology and May's more traditional police work complementing each other nicely.
Fowler begins FULL DARK HOUSE in modern London with ... well, a bang, literally, when the headquarters of the London Peculiar Crimes Unit explodes with Arthur Bryant in it.
This is a 'frame' story, one that begins and ends in the present and works back into the past of many years ago, during the blitz in London. There are returns to the present throughout, but it is the past which dominates and fascinates as we get a sense of what it must have been like during that horrific time in London history.
The author tells an absorbing tale while evoking for us the overlying fear and sense of helplessness, as well as the courage of Londoners. The darkness that prevailed, the smell of smoke and ash, the ruins of store fronts, the gaping holes in streets...this is the backdrop as John and Arthur pursue a shadowy killer through an old dark theatre. The workings of theatre life are also well done. Given what is going on in the world, our detectives pause to wonder if one lone murderer matters very much in a London full of death and destruction, but they must stop him, nevertheless. Lots of plot twists and turns, murders, flights into the bowels of the old theatre, as well as into the fog of a blackout, as our detectives attempt to unravel the secret of the mythological clues the killer leaves behind.
I loved the history, the revelation of what it must have been to live in the daily horror of bomb blasts--and best of all I loved the company of those two lovable, eccentric, elderly detectives. From the moment Fowler puts the thought in May's head that Bryant resembled a young Alec Guiness, he nailed him for the rest of the series. I saw him first as Guiness was in 'Great Expectations' (as Herbert Pockets), then as he was much later in 'Scrooge', and even with a hint of 'The Lady Killers' scarf-draped criminal genius. That Guiness image will stay with me as I continue to read through this series.
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