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Showing 1 - 25 of
40 matches in All Departments
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Plastic (Paperback)
Christopher Fowler
1
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R251
R169
Discovery Miles 1 690
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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With a Foreword by Joanne Harris. June Cryer is a shopaholic
suburban housewife trapped in a lousy marriage. After discovering
her husband's infidelity with the flight attendant next door, she
loses her home, her husband and her credit rating. But there's a
solution: a friend needs a caretaker for a spectacular London
high-rise apartment. It's just for the weekend, and there'll be
money to spend in a city with every temptation on offer. Seizing
the opportunity to escape, June moves in only to find that there's
no electricity and no phone. She must flat-sit until the security
system comes back on. When a terrified girl breaks into the flat
and June makes the mistake of asking the neighbours for help, she
finds herself embroiled in an escalating nightmare, trying to prove
that a murderer exists. For the next 24 hours she must survive on
the streets without friends or money and solve an impossible crime.
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Reports from the Deep End (Paperback)
Maxim Jakubowski, Rick McGrath; Will Self, Iain Sinclair, Christopher Fowler, …
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R631
R516
Discovery Miles 5 160
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Few authors are so iconic that their name is an adjective –
Ballard is one of them. Master of both literary and science
fiction, his classic novels such as Empire of the Sun, Crash and
Cocaine Nights show a world out of joint, a bewildering and strange
place. Alongside the classic dystopias of The Drowned World and
High Rise, his legacy shaped the future of literature. This
collection gathers today’s greatest literary and science fiction
authors to pay tribute to the creator of Balllardian worlds we live
in today. Featuring: • Chris Beckett • Alexandra Benedict •
Pat Cadigan • Adrian Cole • Ramsey Campbell • Paul Di Filippo
• Christopher Fowler • Jeff Noon • David Gordon • James
Grady • Preston Grassmann • Andrew Hook • Samantha Lee Howe
• Rhys Hughes • Maxim Jakubowski • Hanna Jameson • Toby
Litt • James Lovegrove • Nick Mamatas • Barry Malzberg •
Michael Moorcock • Rick McGrath • Adrian McKinty • Geoff
Nicholson • Christine Poulson • David Quantick • Adam Roberts
• George Sandison • Will Self • Iain Sinclair • Lavie
Tidhar A first of its kind anthology, collecting tales of
humanity’s uncanny and uneasy clash with the future, and the
distorted psychological spaces hidden in empires of concrete.
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Ink and Daggers
Maxim Jakubowski; Neil Gaiman, Ann Cleeves, Christopher Fowler, Lavie Tidhar, …
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R604
R496
Discovery Miles 4 960
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OVER TWENTY CWA DAGGER AWARD-WINNING SHORT STORIES FROM THE BEST OF
THE BEST IN CRIME FICTION Legendary editor, Maxim Jakubowski,
delivers another chilling anthology collecting stories of
cold-blooded murder, revenge and crimes-gone-wrong from the best of
the best in crime fiction. Spine-chilling and gripping, these tales
will grip you with their devious narrators and crafty twists.
Featuring classic stories from Neil Gaiman, Ann Cleeves,
Christopher Fowler, Val McDermid, Lavie Tidhar, Chris Simms,
Christine Poulson, James Sallis, Victoria Selman, Conrad Williams,
Stuart Neville, George Pelecanos, Simon Brett, John Lawton, Ken
Bruen, Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins, Peter Robinson,
Martyn Waites and Kevin Wignall
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Hot Water (Paperback)
Christopher Fowler
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R255
R201
Discovery Miles 2 010
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"Devilishly clever" Val McDermid on Strange Tide She sees
everything, but can never tell anyone... a wickedly compulsive
thriller from the bestselling author of the Bryant & May
series. At a beautiful villa near Nice in the south of France,
Hannah Carreras works as a maid. Under strict instructions never to
speak to the guests, she blends into the background - but she sees
everything. Including the mistress Summer, lounging by the pool
awaiting the arrival of her married lover, Steve. When Steve
finally shows at the villa - with his family unexpectedly in tow -
Summer has vanished. Steve claims he never saw her. But Steve's
wife is no fool: she knows there's something going on. Whose tiny
bikini lies by the pool? Whose perfume is in the bathroom? Before
long, the local police start asking questions, and the villa's
occupants have something to hide. Only Hannah, always listening,
watching, saw broken glass and blood on the patio the day Summer
disappeared. Only Hannah thinks she knows what lies are being
told...
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Word Monkey (Hardcover)
Christopher Fowler
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R602
R494
Discovery Miles 4 940
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This is the memoir Christopher Fowler always wanted to write about
'writing'. It's the story of how a young bookworm growing up in a
house where there was nothing to read but knitting pamphlets and
motorcycle manuals became a writer - a 'word monkey' - and pursued
a sort of career in popular fiction. It's a book full of brilliant
insights and sharp observations about the highs and lows and
pitfalls and pleasures of his profession and about his favourite
(and not-so-favourite) novelists. For would-be writers, Word Monkey
is a treasure trove of sage advice on what to watch out for, to
approach with caution or, indeed, to avoid at all costs. But woven
into this hugely entertaining, inspiring and politely opinionated
account of a writer's life is an altogether darker thread. Because
in Spring 2020, as the world went into lockdown, Chris was
diagnosed with terminal cancer and his world was turned upside
down. And yet Word Monkey is anything but a misery memoir. In prose
as light as air, he recounts with candour, grace and typically
self-deprecating humour what he came to realise would be the final
chapter in his story. The result is a deeply moving, often very
funny and surprisingly uplifting account of someone suddenly having
to confront and come to terms with their own mortality.
A bomb rips through present-day London, tragically ending the
crime-fighting partnership of Arthur Bryant and John May begun more
than a half-century ago during another infamous bombing: the Blitz
of World War II. Desperately searching for clues to the saboteur's
identity, May finds the notes his old friend kept of their very
first case and a past that may have returned...with murderous
vengeance. It was an investigation that began with the grisly
murder of a pretty young dancer. In a city shaken by war, a
faceless killer stalked London's theater row, creating his own
sinister drama. And it would take Bryant's unorthodox techniques
and May's dogged police work to catch a fiend whose ability to
escape detection seemed almost supernatural--a murderer who decades
later may have returned to kill one of them...and won't stop until
he kills the other.
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The End of the Line (Paperback)
Jonathan Oliver; Christopher Fowler, Gary McMahon, Adam L. G Nevill, Mark Morris, …
1
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R256
R174
Discovery Miles 1 740
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This collection of stories from some of horror fiction's best
authors will glue you to the page, but watch out; it may leave you
too afraid to take the metro to work. In deep tunnels something
stirs, borne on a warm breath of wind, reeking of diesel and blood.
The spaces between stations hold secrets too terrible for the upper
world to comprehend and the steel lines sing with the songs of the
dead. Jonathan Oliver has collected together some of the very best
in new horror writing in an themed anthology of stories set on, and
around, the New York subway, the London underground, the Metro and
other places deep below.
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Nyctophobia (Paperback)
Christopher Fowler
1
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R253
R171
Discovery Miles 1 710
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"It's a strange thing, nyctophobia. You're not born with it. It can
start at any time. It comes and goes, and it's one of the only
phobias you can transmit to other people." Newly-married architect
Callie and her wealthy husband Mateo move to Hyperion House, a
grand old home in southern Spain. It's an eccentric place built in
front of a cliff: serene and beautiful, but eerily symmetrical, and
cunningly styled so that half the house is flooded with light, and
half - locked up and neglected - is shrouded in darkness.
Unemployed and feeling isolated in a foreign country, Callie
determines to research the history of the curious building. But the
past is sometimes best left alone. Uncovering the folklore of the
house's strange history, Callie is drawn into darkness and
delusion. As a teenager Callie was afraid of the dark, and now with
her adolescent nyctophobia returning she becomes convinced there's
someone in the darkened rooms. Somewhere in the darkness lies the
truth about Hyperion House. But some doors should never be opened.
It's a fresh start for the Met's oddest investigation team, the
Peculiar Crimes Unit. Their first case involves two teenagers who
see a dead man rising from his grave in a London park. And if
that's not alarming enough, one of them is killed in a hit and run
accident. Stranger still, in the moments between when he was last
seen alive and found dead on the pavement, someone has changed his
shirt... Much to his frustration, Arthur Bryant is not allowed to
investigate. Instead, he has been tasked with finding out how
someone could have stolen the ravens from the Tower of London. All
seven birds have vanished from one of the most secure fortresses in
the city. And, as the legend has it, when the ravens leave, the
nation falls... Soon it seems death is all around and Bryant and
May must confront a group of latter-day bodysnatchers, explore an
eerie funeral parlour and unearth the gruesome legend of Bleeding
Heart Yard. More graves are desecrated, further deaths occur, and
the symbol of the Bleeding Heart seems to turn up everywhere - it's
even discovered hidden in the PCU's offices. And when Bryant is
blindfolded and taken to the headquarters of a secret society, he
realises that this case is more complex than even he had imagined,
and that everyone is hiding something. The Grim Reaper walks abroad
and seems to be stalking him, playing on his fears of premature
burial. Rich in strange characters and steeped in London's true
history, this is Bryant & May's most peculiar and disturbing
case of all.
The defenestration of a ruthless theatre impresario's young son was
definitely not the best way to end the play's first night party.
And the crime scene itself was most unusual: a locked bedroom, with
no sign of forced entry, no prints or traces of blood, just a
sinister, life-size puppet of Mr Punch lying on the floor...
Everyone at the party - from the dodgy producer and rakish male
lead to the dour set designer and the assistant stage manager (the
wild daughter of a prominent civil servant) - is a suspect. It's a
perfect case for Bryant and May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit but
the Home Office, wary of the PCU's eccentric methods and intensely
aware of the potential political embarrassment, wants them off the
investigation. The elderly detectives are not so easily deterred,
however. Delving into the history of London theatre and the
gruesome origins of 'Punch and Judy', they uncover a maniacal
killer is at work - one who must be caught before it's curtains for
everyone!
As the nation's oldest serving detectives, we know more about
London than almost anyone. After all, we've been walking its
streets and impulsively arresting its citizens for decades. Who
better to take you through its less savoury side? We'll be chatting
about odd buildings, odder characters, lost venues, forgotten
disasters, confusing routes, dubious gossip, illicit pleasures and
hidden pubs. We'll be making all sorts of odd connections and
showing you why it's almost impossible to separate fact from
fiction in London. With the help of some of our more disreputable
friends, each an argumentative and unreliable expert in his or her
own dodgy field, we'll explain why some streets have genders, why
only two Londoners got to meet Dracula, how a department store and
a prison played tricks on your mind, when a theatre got stranded in
the past, how a building vanished in plain sight, what excited
Charlotte Brontë about the city and where the devils hide in
London. We hope to capture something of the city's restless spirit
by wilfully wandering off course, and it goes without saying that
we'll bluff and bamboozle you along the way but that's all part of
the fun. History is what you remember. London is what you forget
(and we've forgotten a lot). So please do join us on this magical
mystery tour of our city. Who knows where we'll end up?
'The most consistently brilliant, entertaining and educational
voice in contemporary British crime fiction, the utterly fabulous
Christopher Fowler.' Cathi Unsworth, CRIMESQUAD It's a Sunday
morning, and the outspoken Speaker of the House of Commons has just
been crushed under a mountain of citrus fruit . . . Bizarre
accident or something more sinister? The government needs to know
because here's a man who knows a thing or two that could compromise
its future. Bryant and May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit should be
on the case, however it seems the PCU is no more with one detective
is in hospital, the other gone AWOL with the rest of the team
having been dismissed. But events escalate, and soon a series of
brutal yet undeniably clever killings linked to an old English
nursery rhyme threaten society's very foundations and
out-of-the-blue the PCU is (temporarily) back in business. And if
the two detectives - 'old men in a woke world' - can set aside
their differences and discover why some of London's most
influential figures are being threatened, they might not only save
the unit but also prevent the city from descending into chaos . . .
They've been given just one week to find a killer they'd caught
once before . . . Arthur Bryant, John May and the Peculiar Crimes
Unit are on the trail of an enigma: a young man called Mr Fox. But
his identity is false, his links to society are invisible and his
home yields no clues. All they know is that somehow he escaped from
a locked room and murdered one of their best and brightest. Now the
detectives are being lured down into the darkest recesses of the
London Underground where their quarry, expertly disguised, has
struck again. Their search takes them into the vast labyrinth of
tunnels, a subterranean world full of legends and ghost stations,
which tie the city together. Edging closer to what lies hidden
beneath the city - and to the madness that is driving a man to
murder - Bryant and May are about to uncover a mystery as bizarre
as anything they have ever encountered . . .
The Peculiar Crimes Unit has solved many extraordinary cases over
the years, but some were hushed up and hidden away. Until now.
Arthur Bryant remembers these lost cases as if they were yesterday.
Here, then, is the truth about the Covent Garden opera diva and the
seventh reindeer, the body that falls from the Tate Gallery, the
ordinary London street corner where strange accidents keep
occurring, the consul's son discovered buried in the unit's
basement, the corpse pulled from a swamp of Chinese dinners, a
Hallowe'en crime in the Post Office Tower, and the impossible death
that's the fault of a forgotten London legend. Expect misunderstood
clues, lost evidence, arguments about Dickens, churches, pubs and
disorderly conduct from the investigative officers they laughingly
call `England's Finest'!
The Peculiar Crimes Unit is no more--disbanded, finished, kaput.
After years of defying the odds and infuriating their superiors,
detectives Arthur Bryant and John May have finally crossed the
line. While Bryant takes to his bed, his bathrobe, and his esoteric
books, the rest of the team takes to the streets looking for new
careers--until one of them stumbles upon a gruesome murder.
Now the Unit is back for an encore performance--in a rented office
with no computer network, no legal authority, and a broken toilet.
They've got until the end of the week to solve a mystery with links
to gangland crime, the 2012 London Olympics, and a half-man,
half-stag creature that's carrying off young women. It's the kind
of case that Bryant and May live to solve . . . and it could be the
one that finally kills them.
'If you have never entered the curious world of Bryant and May,
you're in for a treat.' THE TIMES It was the kind of story that
barely made the news. When 91-year-old Amelia Hoffman died in her
top-floor flat on a busy London road, it's considered an example of
what has gone wrong with modern society: she slipped through the
cracks in a failing system. But detectives Arthur Bryant and John
May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit have their doubts. Mrs Hoffman was
once a government security expert, even though no one can quite
remember her. When a link emerges between the old lady and a
diplomat trying to flee the country, it seems that an impossible
murder has been committed. Mrs Hoffman wasn't the only one at risk.
Bryant is convinced that other forgotten women with hidden talents
are also in danger. And, curiously, they all own models of London
Bridge. With the help of some of their more certifiable informants,
the detectives follow the strangest of clues in an investigation
that will lead them through forgotten alleyways to the city's
oldest bridge in search of a desperate killer. But just when the
case appears to be solved, they discover that Mrs Hoffman was
smarter than anyone imagined. There's a bigger game afoot that
could have terrible consequences. It's time to celebrate Bryant and
May's twentieth anniversary as their most lunatic case yet brings
death and rebirth to London's most peculiar crimes unit.
'Winningly eccentric . . . London, in all its non-homogenous,
sprawling splendour, is as much a character as Fowler's sleuthing
duo' Barry Forshaw, Financial Times The Peculiar Crimes Unit has
solved many extraordinary cases over the years, but some were
hushed up and hidden away. Until now. Arthur Bryant remembers these
lost cases as if they were yesterday. Unfortunately, he doesn't
remember yesterday, so the newly revealed facts could come as a
surprise to everyone, including his exasperated partner John May.
Here, then, is the truth about the Covent Garden opera diva and the
seventh reindeer, the body that falls from the Tate Gallery, the
ordinary London street corner where strange accidents keep
occurring, the consul's son discovered buried in the unit's
basement, the corpse pulled from a swamp of Chinese dinners, a
Hallowe'en crime in the Post Office Tower, and the impossible death
that's the fault of a forgotten London legend. All of the unit's
oddest characters are here, plus the detectives' long-suffering
sergeant Janice Longbright gets to reveal her own forgotten
mystery. These twelve crimes must be solved without the help of
modern technology, mainly because nobody knows how to use it.
Expect misunderstood clues, lost evidence, arguments about Dickens,
churches, pubs and disorderly conduct from the investigative
officers they laughingly call 'England's Finest'!
_______________________ What readers are saying: ***** 'Another gem
from Christopher Fowler' ***** 'I've loved Bryant & May since I
first discovered them' ***** 'A perfect collection of implausibly,
improbably impossible mysteries for readers of Bryant and May both
old and new'
'JOYOUS . . . READERS WILL LOVE THIS FASCINATING BOOK' CATHY
RENTZENBRINK 'A GODSEND WITH THE PRESENT SEASON APPROACHING' IRISH
INDEPENDENT 'THE PERFECT GIFT FOR A BOOK-OBSESSED FRIEND' STYLIST,
50 UNMISSABLE BOOKS FOR AUTUMN 2017 'EXCELLENT . . . SHOULD BE READ
BY ANYONE WHO LOVES BOOKS' EVENING STANDARD Absence doesn't make
the heart grow fonder. It makes people think you're dead. So begins
Christopher Fowler's foray into the back catalogues and backstories
of 99 authors who, once hugely popular, have all but disappeared
from our shelves. Whether male or female, domestic or
international, flash-in-the-pan or prolific, mega-seller or
prize-winner - no author, it seems, can ever be fully immune from
the fate of being forgotten. And Fowler, as well as remembering
their careers, lifts the lid on their lives, and why they often
stopped writing or disappeared from the public eye. These 99
journeys are punctuated by 12 short essays about faded
once-favourites: including the now-vanished novels Walt Disney
brought to the screen, the contemporary rivals of Sherlock Holmes
and Agatha Christie who did not stand the test of time, and the
women who introduced us to psychological suspense many decades
before it conquered the world. This is a book about books and their
authors. It is for book lovers, and is written by one who could not
be a more enthusiastic, enlightening and entertaining guide. 'A
BIBLIOPHILE'S DREAM' FINANCIAL TIMES 'WILL HAVE READERS SCURRYING
INTO SECONDHAND BOOKSHOPS' GUARDIAN
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Paperboy (Paperback)
Christopher Fowler
1
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R339
R276
Discovery Miles 2 760
Save R63 (19%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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Christopher Fowler's memoir captures life in suburban London as it
has rarely been seen: through the eyes of a lonely boy who spends
his days between the library and the cinema, devouring novels,
comics, cereal packets - anything that might reveal a story. Caught
between an ever-sensible but exhausted mother and a DIY-obsessed
father fighting his own demons, Christopher takes refuge in words.
His parents try to understand their son's peculiar obsessions, but
fast lose patience with him - and each other. The war of nerves
escalates to include every member of the Fowler family, and
something has to give, but does it mean that a boy must always give
up his dreams for the tough lessons of real life? Beautifully
written, this rich and astute evocation of a time and a place
recalls a childhood at once entertainingly eccentric and
endearingly ordinary.
Winner of CrimeFest 2013's 'eDunnit Award' for 'the best crime
fiction ebook published in 2012 in both hardcopy and in electronic
format'. Two small children are playing a game called
'Witch-Hunter'. They place a curse on a young woman taking lunch in
a church courtyard and wait for her to die. An hour later the woman
is indeed found dead inside St Bride's Church - a building that
no-one else has entered. Unfortunately Bryant & May are refused
the case. Instead, there are hired by their greatest enemy to find
out why his wife has suddenly started behaving strangely. She's
become an embarrassment to him at government dinners, and he is
convinced that someone is trying to drive her insane. She has even
taken to covering the mirrors in her apartment, and believes
herself to be the victim of witchcraft. Then a society photographer
is stabbed to death in a nearby park and suddenly a link emerges
between the two cases. And so begins an investigation that will
test the members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit to their limits,
setting Arthur Bryant off on a trail that leads to Bedlam and
Bletchley Park, and into the world of madness, codes and the secret
of London's strangest relic. As the members of the Peculiar Crimes
Unit dig behind the city's facades to expose a world of private
clubs, hidden passages and covert loyalties, they realise that the
case might not just end in disaster - it might also get everyone
killed.
On a rainy winter night outside a run-down nightclub in the wrong
part of London, four strangers meet for the first time at 4:00am. A
few weeks later the body of an Indian textile worker is found
hanging upside down inside a willow tree on Hamstead Heath. The
Peculiar Crimes Unit is called in to investigate. The victim was
found surrounded by the paraphernalia of black magic, and so Arthur
Bryant and John May set off to question experts in the field. But
the case is not what it appears. When another victim seemingly
commits suicide, it becomes clear that in the London night is a
killer who knows what people fear most. And he always strikes at
4:00am. In order to catch him, the PCU must switch to night shifts,
but still the team draws a blank. John May takes a technological
approach, Arthur Bryant goes in search of academics and misfits for
help, for this is becoming a case that reveals impossibilities at
every turn, not least that there's no indication of what the
victims might have done to attract the attentions of a murderer
that doesn't seem to exist. But impossibilities are what the
Peculiar Crimes Unit does best. As they explore a night city where
all the normal rules are upended, they're drawn deeper into a case
that involves murder, arson, kidnap, blackmail, bats and the
psychological effects of loneliness on Londoners. It's a trail that
takes them from the poorest part of the East End to the wealthiest
homes in North London - an investigation that can only end in
tragedy
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Film Freak (Paperback)
Christopher Fowler
1
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R371
R302
Discovery Miles 3 020
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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It's the late 1970s and 20-something Christopher Fowler is a film
freak, obsessively watching lousy films in run-down fleapit
cinemas. He longs to be a famous screenwriter and put his dreams on
the big screen. And so he heads for Wardour Street, Britain's
equivalent of Hollywood. But he's made a spectacular mistake,
arriving just as the nation's filmmakers are falling to their
knees, brought low by the arrival of video and the destruction of
the old movie palaces. The only films being made are smutty low
budget farces and TV spinoffs and instead of being asked to write
another 'Bullitt', he's churning out short films advertising
boilers and nylon sheets. Somehow, against the odds, he finds
success - although in a very different guise to the one he
expected. From the sticky Axminster of the local cinema to the red
carpet at Cannes, Film Freak is a grimly hilarious and acutely
observed trawl through the arse-end of the British film industry
that turns into an ultimately affecting search for friendship and
happiness.
Our story begins at the end of an investigation, as the members of
London's Peculiar Crimes Unit race to catch a killer near London
Bridge Station in the rain, not realising that they're about to
cause a bizarre accident just yards away from the crime scene. And
it will have repercussions for them all... One year later, in an
exclusive London crescent, a woman walks her dog - but she's being
watched. When she's found dead, the Peculiar Crimes Unit is called
in to investigate. Why? Because the method of death is odd, the
gardens are locked, the killer had no way in - or out - and the dog
has disappeared. So a typical case for Bryant & May. But the
hows and whys of the murder are not the only mysteries surrounding
the dead woman - there's a missing husband and a lost nanny to
puzzle over too. And it seems very like that the killer is
preparing to strike again. As Arthur Bryant delves in to the
history of London's 'wild chambers' - its extraordinary parks and
gardens, John May and the rest of the team seem to have caused a
national scandal. If no-one is safe then all of London's open
spaces must be closed... With the PCU placed under house arrest,
only Arthur Bryant remains at liberty - but can a hallucinating old
codger catch the criminal and save the unit before it's too late?
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