I actually really enjoyed this book. Took me a while to get around to it but really enjoyed it when I did.

Fowler’s Bryant & May books are always a joy. The two stalwarts of the Peculiar Crimes Unit can always be relied upon to solve whatever criminal weirdness shows up on the streets in London but, when the Speaker of the House of Commons throws himself out of a high window to his death neither Arthur Bryant nor John May are available to help. One is recovering from a serious injury and the other just, well, not around and the unit itself has been disbanded. Again. And, it seems, for good this time. But a series of further incidents and deaths – all seemingly linked by the verses of a well-known, London-based nursery rhyme – mean that the curmudgeonly pair are needed more than ever.

All the usual team are present and augmented by a Home Office ‘observer’ (because what does a unit brought back to solve one, last, case need more than an ‘observer’) and a prickly teenaged intern. The plot thickens faster than instant blancmange and my brain was soon throbbing (but not unpleasantly) with possibilities and random information. The gradual unwinding of a plot so convoluted it could only have come from a mind as strange (in a very good way) as Christopher Fowler’s is curiously satisfying. I love the Bryant & May mysteries but could I ever be brave enough to read two in a row without needing a lie down and a stiff drink?

This series just keeps getting better and better.

After the ending of the last book you did think the long-standing Bryant & May partnership was sadly over...but Christopher Fowler uses an author's magic and a feasible explanation to see the ageless dectectives back in action.

'Oranges & Lemons' takes it name from the nursery rhyme of the same name, pitting the dectectives and their colleagues at the Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU) against an ingenious foe. One of the strengths of these books is that nothing is what it seems, not least the energy and dexterity of Bryant & May, who are certainly way past retirement age.

I won't give any plot spoilers, save to say this is a magical tale and long may Bryant & May continue!

Another series of crimes for the Peculiar Crimes Unit!

I took a while to get into the latest Bryant and May investigation, even though I had previously read another in the series. I must say that I’m glad that I stayed on board because I had forgotten just how wittily Christopher Fowler portrays his characters, especially the two main men ... quite hilarious!

Fowler weaves a complex tale starting with the Speaker of the House of Commons being hurled out of a window from his apartment. Rather bizarrely he had been sent a crate of oranges and lemons. What on earth did this signify?

Soon it becomes obvious that a string of murders was occurring all over London. These terrible events brought the Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU) out of retirement, led by the eccentric, enigmatic Bryant and his partner May, who was recovering from a bout in hospital.

As the plot thickens, the PCU is following the nursery rhyme clues of ‘Oranges and Lemons,’ so enabling Bryant to show off his intimate knowledge all over London. Sometimes Bryant tends to ramble and seems to go off on a tangent. Why was the murderer always one step ahead?.

Finally, after a hectic chase around London, the truth is revealed, with a rather unexpected twist at the end! I’m sure that this popular series will appeal to all fans of murder mysteries.

Galadriel.

Elite Reviewing Group received a copy of this book to review.

When a prominent politician is killed in a freak accident, the Peculiar Crimes Unit are brought together to investigate. When another accident occurs, Arthur Bryant starts to suspect a link with the Oranges and Lemons rhyme. Can the Unit solve the mystery, or is Bryant just losing his mind?

Oranges and Lemons is the latest Bryant and May mystery, and it lives up to the reputation of the earlier books. The two elderly detectives really ought to be too old for investigative work, but seem able to carry on regardless, along with the other misfit members of the PCU. At times Bryant especially can appear very random, which does make this a very quirky book, but all the more enjoyable for it. I would love to join one of his walking tours around London, as the script excerpts are very amusing.

Good story, at times slightly bonkers, but a good read.

For a good part of its long and curious history, it seems that The Peculiar Crimes Unit of London’s Metropolitan Police has been under threat. Civil servants and box-tickers without number have tried to close it down; it has endured bombs (courtesy of both the Luftwaffe and those closer to home); it has suffered plague and the eternal pestilence of whatever vile tobacco Arthur Bryant happens to stuffing into his pipe at any particular moment. The PCU has become:

“..like a flatulent elderly relative in a roomful of
millennials,a source of profound embarrassment..”

But now, yet another crisis seems to be the fatal straw that will break the back of the noble beast. Bryant’s partner John May (the sensible one) is on sick leave recovering from a near-fatal gunshot wound. Mr B has gone AWOL (trying to have his memoirs published), and the office has been invaded by a tight lipped (and probably ashen-faced) emissary from the Home Office who has instructions to observe what he sees and then report back to Whitehall.

The PCU creaks into arthritic action when Arthur Bryant puts his literary ambitions on hold, and links three apparently random deaths. A Romanian bookseller’s shop is torched, and he dies in police custody; a popular and (unusually) principled politician is grievously wounded, apparently by a pallet of citrus fruit falling from a lorry; a well-connected campaigning celebrity is stabbed to death on the steps of a notable London church. For Bryant, the game is afoot, and he draws on his unrivaled knowledge of London’s arcane history to convince his colleagues that the killer’s business is far from finished. His colleagues? Regular B&M fans will be relieved to know that, in the words of the 1917 American song (melody by Sir Arthur Sullivan) “Hail, Hail – The Gang’s All Here!” In addtion to the usual crew, though, there is an intern.

An intern in the PCU? Yes, indeed, and in the words of Raymond Land;

“You may have noticed there’s an unfamiliar name attached to the recipients at the top of the page. Sidney Hargreaves is a girl. She’s happy to be called either Sid or Sidney because her name is, I quote, ‘non gender specific in an identity-based profession.’ It’s not for me to pass comment on gender, I got lost somewhere between Danny la Rue and RuPaul.”

There are more deaths and Arthur Bryant is convinced that the killings are linked to the London churches immortalised in the old nursery rhyme, with its cryptic references:

Oranges and lemons,
Say the bells of St. Clement's.

You owe me three farthings,
Say the bells of St. Martin's.

When will you pay me?
Say the bells at Old Bailey.

When I grow rich,
Say the bells at Shoreditch.

When will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney.

I do not know,
Says the great bell at Bow.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!
Chip chop chip chop the last man is dead

But what links the victims to the killer? Beneath the joyous anarchy Arthur Bryant creates in the incomprehending digital world of modern policing, something very, very dark is going on. Fowler gives us hints, such as in this carefully selected verse between two sections of the book:

“The past is round us, those old spires
That glimmer o’er our head;
Not from the present are their fires,
Their light is from the dead.”

Also, underpinning the gags and joyfully sentimental cultural references there are moments of almost unbearable poignancy such as the moment when the two old men meet, as they always have done, on Waterloo Bridge, and think about loves won and lost and how things might have been.

There is no-one quite like Christopher Fowler among modern authors. He distills the deceptively probing gaze of John Betjeman, the sharp humour of George and Weedon Grossmith, the narrative drive of Arthur Conan Doyle and a knowledge of London’s darker corners and layers of history quite the equal of Iain Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd, The result? A spirit that is as delicious as it is intoxicating.

The Bryant & May series continues and delivers one of the best with Oranges & Lemons. The Peculiar Crimes unit return from the brink and are left trying to solve a series of murders with the odds and the establishment seemingly stacked against them. The ensemble return and Fowler lets the group develop individually as well as a team. There will be drama and Bryant will be cantankerous. Splendid - highly recommended.

I have read a couple of the early Bryant and May and have a bit of catching up to do with the others.
I think you could have read it as a stand alone book, but background to the characters would help.
It does get a bit rambling at times as Arthur Bryant does tend to wander off in his thought processes.
Lots of little bits of quirky and sometimes random bits of London history are thrown into the narrative.
For a mystery series that is supposed to be humorous, there are an awful lot of murders!
I did find it a little confusing at the end, but it was still a good read and I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for my ARC in return for an honest review.

I got quirkiness in spades… And yes – I know that I crashed midway into this series (well, more than midway, given this is Book 17, to be honest) but picking up the pieces as to what had previously happened wasn’t the challenge. Getting used to Fowler’s habit of meandering off the narrative in the voice of Bryant to wander around London and give ad hoc tours – as well as the rather rambling style – did turn out to be a bit more of a problem. There is a fine line between charmingly different and annoyingly self indulgent when employing these sorts of tactics, particularly in a murder mystery. Most of the time, I think Fowler stayed on the right side of that line, but there were times when the interjections complicated an already fairly tortuous plot.

I also wasn’t wholly convinced by the setup of the Peculiar Crimes Unit and it’s last gasp – it seems a shambolic waste of resources even by dear old UK standards to dismantle a unit, only to promptly put it back together again. Particularly as there weren’t any major demotions during either process.

But these details didn’t prevent this being an entertainingly different read that engrossed me throughout. And although I was a bit frustrated at times with yet another diversion from the main plot, or yet another silly example of Bryant’s eccentric behaviour that got increasingly daft – there was never any risk of my putting this one down and not completing it. As for the plot… nope – I’m not even going to try. It sort of made sense at the time, but if you want to really know about it – go and get hold of the book, or better still, do the intelligent thing and start this series from the beginning. Recommended for murder mystery fans who love a vivid backdrop and highly eccentric main characters. The ebook arc copy of Oranges and Lemons was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest opinion of the book.
8/10

“Here comes a candle to light you to bed,
And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!”
The Speaker of the House of the Commons can be a controversial figure, so when he is almost killed when crates of fruit fell from a lorry onto him, there’s a reasonable amount of interest in the accident. But Arthur Bryant, formerly of the now-disbanded Peculiar Crimes Unit, sees things a little differently. A man buried by oranges and lemons – in the vicinity of the church of St Clements…
The PCU, while reformed to deal with this “accident”, is still in a state of disarray following the events of The Lonely Hour. Without his partner by his side, Arthur Bryant is finding himself struggling to cope, but as the deaths begin to add up, all linked tangentially to the traditional folk song, the unit will have to pull together to stop a determined killer, someone who has been planning this for a very long time…
One question that rattles around my head sometimes is “Which modern authors emulate the Golden Age of Detection best”? There’s no good answer to this – although there are several bad answers – but one could ask instead, “Which modern authors show an unabashed affection for the Golden Age?” And near the top of the list would be Christopher Fowler.
There’s a moment towards the end of the book, where one of the two Daves, the temporary workmen who seem to be permanently working at the PCU, posits a theory, based on an Agatha Christie book that he’d read. It’s a theory that some readers may have already had concerning the plot, and hearing it voiced from the Dave will either give them confidence or shoot it down, depending on whether they trust Dave. Other readers will think, damn, good point Dave, should have thought of that, and, most importantly, other readers will think, gosh, that sounds like an interesting book, I’d better go and read some Agatha Christie… It’s an off-hand line that works on so many levels. Yes, I’m probably over-thinking that, but it made me smile. And think. Not sure what else I could ask of a book… And that’s just one moment that’s stuck with me. There are many more…
Oranges and Lemons is a thematic sequel to The Lonely Hour (my book of the month for last month). While that dealt with the PCU pulling away from each other in various ways, Oranges and Lemons is more about rapprochement. While – and I really should emphasise this – the book works perfectly well as a standalone, if you know the characters well, then the book is an absolute joy. This pair of books has seen John May taking a little bit more of the spotlight, moving out of Arthur Bryant’s shadow. The reader sees a little more clearly why exactly John is necessary – I compared him to the straight man in a comedy double act in the last review - the essential part of the act that is never noticed. All the members of the PCU (apart from the one who does not return from the previous book – well, two, sort of) move forward in their lives but unlike in the last book, these steps bring them closer together.
We also meet two new members of the team – well, three, sort of – and I did particularly enjoy the new intern, Sidney, a great addition to the team. I’ll say no more about her, I’ll let you meet her for yourself, but I thought the author did a great job with her.
There are so many other bits and pieces I could praise, but one final thing – I’ve read so many “serial killer nursery rhyme” stories where the author forgets to or can’t give a reason for the murderer following such a pattern. Heck, even And Then There Were None only has “well, it’s a bit scary, isn’t it?” But here, Fowler actually gives the killer a reason for that makes sense, in a twisted way, obviously. If only they hadn’t made that one fatal mistake…
Bryant and May – Oranges and Lemons is out tomorrow, July 23rd from Doubleday and is utterly fantastic. Many thanks for the review e-copy.

In Which Citrus Fruit Is Predominant.....
The nineteenth entry in this long running, perfectly entertaining series which just keeps getting better and better. An incident with a veritable mountain of citrus fruit gives cause for concern, the Peculiar Crimes Unit is in chaos and things get more sinister by the minute. Hugely enjoyable, as ever.

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.

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

After one disaster too many the Peculiar Crimes Unit is being disbanded. Land is retiring to the Isle of Wight and the rest of the team are hoping to be deployed into other departments.
Bryant has gone missing since his partner May was shot during a previous case.
Then The Speaker of the House of Commons is injured in very strange circumstances and suddenly the PCU is back in business, under the watchful eye of the Home Office.
The two older detectives are going to need to work together to solve the case and when things escalate with the deaths of two prominent London figures, they and the rest of the team must act quickly to put together the clues and work out who is targeting them and why. The killer seems to always be one step ahead, is the clue in an old rhyme or are the PCU just chasing shadows.
When I first started reading this it seemed a bit old fashioned but unexpectedly it also had me gripped very quickly. The writing style made me feel like it should be set in in a bygone era but then it would reference mobiles and ipads which did take a while to get used to.
Different to anything I usually read and I can’t quite put my finger on why but I loved this!

This is the first Bryant and May book I have read what a lovely surprise it was. The characters all dysfunctionial but loveable. I will remember this book for a long time and certainly tell everyone how much I liked it.

My heart gave a leap of joy when I saw there was a new addition to the treasure that is Christopher Fowler's elderly, shambolic detective Arthur Bryant and John May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU) series set in London, which, given this is the 19th book, is one hell of an achievement. What I can take for granted is that I am going to have a whale of a time, I am going to learn more about unusual aspects of arcane London history, I will laugh, be entertained and have great fun, encountering a fascinating bunch of new intriguing and offbeat characters, as well as the return of the old crowd, and there is going to be another complex, ambitious and labyrinthian plot to get my teeth into. It begins with the closing down of the PCU unit, with the chief, Raymond Land, having retired to the Isle of Wight, May in hospital, having managed to survive being shot, and Bryant, well, he's gone missing and the rest of the unit are on a mission to find him.

The Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Claremont, suffers what appears to be the strangest of accidents, as crates of oranges and lemons fall on him, skewering and causing serious injuries that send the Home Office in a tizz, worried for his mental state and the political implications this may result in. The perfect fall guys for the investigation are the PCU as the band are put back together again, with a Home Office spy among them, Tim Floris, and the entry of the Generation Z intern, the young and gifted Sidney Hargreaves, inordinately interested in Bryant. An independent bookstore, Typeface, is burned down in an act of arson, with the owner, Christian Albu, committing suicide in police custody. The killer brings the well known traditional nursery rhyme, Oranges and Lemons, into the centre of the investigation. There are murders in and around churches, Bryant and the PCU consult magicians, skateboarders, witches, conspiracy theorists, and more in their efforts to get to the truth. They have a prime villainous suspect, Peter English, who is proving hard to interview, never mind arrest, but as we know, Bryant is not a man who can be brushed off.

Fowler never disappoints, and once again he serves a decidedly moreish and imaginative addition to a series that shows absolutely no sign of going off the boil and which has deservedly accrued a legion of loyal fans. This is a fantastically entertaining and brilliant read, always so good to spend time with the PCU stalwarts and, in particular, with a Bryant who may be out of step with the modern world, with methods that, even for those who have known him forever, find astounding and a complete mystery, but which never fail. If you have never come across the Bryant and May series, I strongly urge you to read it, you will not regret it. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Random House Transworld for an ARC.

The long running series carries on but shows no sign of flagging. The author's energy and enthusiasm as well as his love of the character shines through on every page. As ever he weaves a serpentine puzzle for our aged detectives to solve along with their team of helpers. London is the ever present backdrop over which the plot is artfully painted,

I loved Oranges and Lemons. It’s very well written, witty, involving and a good, if slightly implausible mystery.

I hadn’t read the immediate predecessor, The Lonely Hour; there have been some pretty cataclysmic events in that which shape the beginning of Oranges and Lemons and it’s probably best to read it first if possible but I managed fine without. This time a series of murders occurs, apparently linked to the eponymous rhyme, and the PCU is reformed to try to get to the bottom of them. Bryant is in his element, with his encyclopaedic and arcane knowledge of London and the unit is generally in fine form. I laughed out loud several times, was hugely entertained and genuinely involved with the characters. There are fascinating bits of obscure London history, some amusing and well-aimed swipes at some of the idiocies of modern life and plenty more of real substance along with the story and the humour.

I’d only read one Bryant & May before this - Hall Of Mirrors, which I wasn’t especially taken with. I’m glad I gave them another try because this was a real treat and I’ll definitely be reading more from this series. Very warmly recommended.

(My thanks to Random House, Doubleday for an ARC via NetGalley.)

I recently read the first Bryant and May book and took this opportunity to get right up to date with the latest. It’s a quirky, fiendishly plotted detective story, that frequently surprised me - i think the clues are scattered throughout, but i certainly didn’t pick up on them at the time. Not having read the books in between wasn’t a problem - you’re told what you need to know and the characterisation of the characters is an absolute joy. The mix of modern detective story, London history and old school ‘Christie-esque’ story telling is compelling, and i now need to go and buy the books in between - if only to work it just how old the lead characters are (surely pushing 100, although it’s not actually relevant). The only jarring note is unfortunate timeline of being set now - in that better covid-19-free universe!

I would like to thank Netgalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for an advance copy of Oranges and Lemons, the nineteenth novel to feature Detectives Arthur Bryant and John May of the Met’s Peculiar Crime Unit.

When the Speaker of the House is seriously injured in an accident with a cargo of citrus fruit questions are raised in the Government. It would be a case for the Peculiar Crimes Unit but it has been disbanded, Bryant is missing and May is in hospital recovering from a gunshot wound. The unit is hastily reformed to investigate and uncovers much more than a simple accident.

I thoroughly enjoyed Oranges and Lemons which is the usual mixture of baffling plot, humour and interesting facts about London and its history. The plot is built around the traditional rhyme of Oranges and Lemons with attacks occurring in and around the churches mentioned in it. These attacks are imaginative and puzzle the detectives about motive and the point of their elaborateness. They begin to see them as smoke and mirrors but the reader has a better idea of what is going on due to chapters entitled Making A Murderer which give the perpetrator’s point of view. The perpetrator is not identified and try as I might I couldn’t guess. It kept me glued to the pages throughout.

I dip in and out of this series so I haven’t read many of them but I think this is one of the best I have read. It had me laughing out loud on several occasions and chortling on many more. The basic premise of a renegade police department led by two old men who consistently produce the goods is absurd but how they deal with modern day life is even funnier. Arthur Bryant who can barely work his phone using text speak? Priceless. In some of the novels I find all the information about London slightly boring but in this novel it is quirky and short enough to be interesting and informative. The balance seems right.

Oranges and Lemons is a fun read that I have no hesitation in recommending.

This book is perfect on so many levels, Christopher Fowler is a genius. This works as a detective story, an homage to forgotten London, a history book and an exquisitely written novel. Despite the 'whodunnit' element, this book shines as an ode to the friendship that forms between eccentric and and misfit characters. The characters are like old friends to me now and the newest recruit to the PCU is a welcome young addition. If you have never encountered the world of Bryant and May, I encourage you to do so. Start at the beginning and work through the series, I almost envy you the treats you have in store. This would be a ten star read for me; fabulous.