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Arthur Bryant and John May are two of detective fiction's most unique anachronisms. The de facto heads of the London Police Department's Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU), Bryant and May have been investigating murders in their somewhat peculiar way for almost 60 years. Now well ensconced within senior status, the two, as well as the somewhat unusual personalities who assist them in the ramshackle PCU offices, attempt to maintain their relevance in the modern world, occasionally eschewing modern detection methods in favor of tried-and-true tactics that have held them in good stead for decades, even as the misdeeds of the past --- more often than not --- provide clues for present-day mayhem.
TEN SECOND STAIRCASE, the latest Bryant and May novel, involves a series of locked room mysteries, in which a noted personality of some dubious repute (a controversial artist, a minor celebrity, a notorious pederast) is found dead under ambiguous circumstances, possibly by ill fortune or accident, but probably by murder most foul. An unlikely figure, appearing to be an old English highwayman, is seen in the vicinity of each death; he leaves a somewhat cryptic calling card at each scene.
As if this was not enough, the PCU finds itself threatened, as in the past, with extinction. The unexpected and unofficial test for the ongoing survival of PCU is the resolution of its most notorious cold case, one that involves the so-called Leicester Square Vampire, a cold-blooded murderer whose victims include May's own daughter. Those who occasionally have taken Fowler to task in the past for what they have considered to be unlikely solutions to difficult puzzles will have reason to rejoice here, as the apparently impossible Highwayman murders are plausibly explained.
Bryant is a curmudgeon, but one cannot help but embrace him for his penchant for rude and unpredictable --- yet dead-on --- practical jokes. May, while being the more approachable and pragmatic of the pair, has an unrepentantly sweet side to himself, manifested by his gentle doting upon April, his agoraphobic granddaughter who in TEN SECOND STAIRCASE joins the PCU as a full-time member and brings her canny powers of observation to the fore.
There is so much to like here. Fowler gently rapid-fires from the mouths of Bryant or May bits of London history at the reader, and the tone, from first word to last, is so unrestrainedly British that while reading it one can almost feel the cobblestone beneath one's feet. At the same time, there is a great deal of understated dark humor to recommend. Think, if you will, of Agatha Christie resurrected to script "The Avengers" television series, and you'll have an idea of what's going on here. Rather than being formulistic writing, this is a comfortable familiarity, given that Fowler keeps his idiosyncratic characters fresh and interesting by...well, creating fresh and interesting characters to begin with.
This element, combined with Fowler's off-kilter storyline and intriguing criminals, makes TEN SECOND STAIRCASE the strongest entry in the series to date.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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