This is the book that got me hooked! The ascerbic wit; spooky locales, funny, endearing characters and interesting history; make this the kind of book that is hard to put down.

I can't wait to get to the next book in the series.

This is a detective story of sorts, but don't read this book expecting the usual type of mystery story. Of course there are crimes to be solved, and an investigation to be carried out, with lots of plot twists and all the usual trappings of detective fiction. There is an ensemble of odd characters, eccentric heroes and twisted villains. There is also a very atmospheric evocation of life during the air raids on London during World War II.I thought that all of this was very well-done and interesting. But what really hooked me into this book was the obvious love the author (and his characters) have for the deep history and diverse people of London. Every bit of the book is alive with strange and fascinating London lore, and fortunately for the readers of this series, that is an inexaustable well of material that even the finest fiction can't match.

This book is not for everyone, but if you like quirky fiction that operates according to its own laws, and takes you to places you might never find on your own,you may enjoy this book (and series) as much as I did.

The plot is a trifle filled with chapters that end in 'come on there isn't a moment to lose' sort of artificial suspense, but the enjoyable partnership of the somewhat otherworldly Bryant and the down to Earth May, a much more plausible Holmes and Watson, with more wit as well more than makes up for it.

Setting his mystery in blitz-ravaged London and evoking its atmosphere of night bombing raids and their aftermath in the city streets, along with a risque operatic production trying to make its opening night, Fowler concocted a tanatlizing background for a mystery. He stirs into this already promising mix a stretch of 60 years, a span that presents a boyish pair of detectives during wartime London, and later at the end of their careers (octogenarian detectives?!?! there's a novel twist) in the multicultural London of the 21st century. Back and forth we go between then and now, and not always with the greatest clarity.

The plot involves a "peculiar crimes unit" headed up drawn character and the dialogue between him and May, as well as the out-of-sorts authoritarian Biddle, is enjoyable. But in the end, the various plot elements that are meant to sustain the"peculiar crimes unit" don't really add up. Fowler didn't seem to have the nerve to have the seances and clairvoyants (beloved of Bryant) actually lead us into the realm of the uncanny - throwing the reader (not to mention May and Biddle) into uneasy terrain. He pulls back. May's encounter with a clairvoyant's summoning up of a "deceased personage" could've been a presence or a poltergeist, but - naw - it's just a kitchen accident caused en-scene accumulates enough eccentric caricatures in the narrative, and go through a routine in a ripe, slightly surreal atmosphere (Fowler's decaying London theatre), you've done your job. Well not quite, old chap.

The Bryant & May series has continued, I see, and I hope that Fowler will take a clue from a British detective fiction writer like P.D. James. She is the same age as the characters Bryant and May, and is a master at convincingly weaving (not just stirring in along the way) character, dialogue, motivation, locale on the way to a compelling denouement/conclusion. Blend that approach with the spot on humor found in the American Anglophile mysteries of Martha Grimes and Fowler's promising ideas and authorial voice will find its mark.

Wow!This was fun!The combination of the theater, Greek myth and the Blitz all at once makes for a cracking, good read.The several main characters are appealing - you root for their success against the forces of darkness...