How can an elderly recluse drown in a chair in her otherwise dry basement? That's what John May and Arthur Bryant of London's Peculiar Crimes Unit set out to discover in a city rife with shady real estate developers, racist threats, dodgy academicians, and someone dangerously obsessed with Egyptian mythology. Linking them all is an evil lurking in London's vast and forgotten underground river system-a killer with the eerie ability to strike anywhere, anytime, without leaving a clue. It's a subterranean case of secrets, lies, and multiple murder that defies not only the law, but reason itself. Can Bryant and May bring a killer to the surface and stop the dark tide of murder before it pulls them under, too?

"They're old, they're cranky, and their chaotic work habits inevitably lead to disaster. But life always seems livelier whenever Arthur Bryant and John May are on a case!...An imaginative funhouse of a world where sage minds go to expand their vistas and sharpen their wits." -New York Times Book Review

"Traditional mystery buffs with a taste for the offbeat will relish British author Fowler's wonderful second contemporary whodunit featuring the Peculiar Crimes Unit and its elderly odd couple, Arthur Bryant and John May."-Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A clever twist on the traditional police procedural... The real thrill here is the delightful duo in the starring roles, two fresh and unusual characters who manage to breathe new life into an established genre in which it's getting harder and harder to find anything genuinely fresh."-Booklist

"Humorous, engaging."-Kirkus Reviews

"Entertaining and thrilling." -Chicago Tribune

"More down to earth than [Jasper] Fforde but just as delightfully quirky." -Seattle Times

Chrisopher Fowler is the acclaimed author of fifteen previous novels, including the award-winning Full Dark House, and four other Peculiar Crimes Unit mysteries, White Corridor, The Water Room, Seventy-Seven Clocks, and Ten Second Staircase. He lives in London.


From the Hardcover edition.

How can an elderly recluse "drown "in a chair in her otherwise dry basement? That's what John May and Arthur Bryant of London's Peculiar Crimes Unit set out to discover in a city rife with shady real estate developers, racist threats, dodgy academicians, and someone dangerously obsessed with Egyptian mythology. Linking them all is an evil lurking in London's vast and forgotten underground river system--a killer with the eerie ability to strike anywhere, anytime, without leaving a clue. It's a subterranean case of secrets, lies, and multiple murder that defies not only the law, but reason itself. Can Bryant and May bring a killer to the surface and stop the dark tide of murder before it pulls them under, too?