Victoria Vanishes

Victoria Vanishes (2008) Christopher Fowler

The Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU) has changed Oswald’s retirement party to a wake, and on the way home Bryant sees a woman who is later discovered murdered. Unfortunately for him, he sees her across from a pub that hasn’t existed in decades. Unsurprisingly, the PCU is drawn into the case, and discover that several women have been killed in London pubs, and that several of these cases are linked.

To make things harder, a new member joins the PCU–a member whose sole goal seems to be to bring the unit down. All in all, this is not a good week for the PCU.

I really like the Peculiar Crimes Unit mysteries. The characters are quirky and amusing, but that doesn’t make them any less real. (The PCU seems in many ways like the office from Hell, where all the odd office workers have somehow ended up in a single place.)

But most of all I like the mysteries. In theory, these are police procedurals. Except that they aren’t, really, because even the members of the PCU admit they are the regular police and they don’t use regular police methods. And the mysteries their office gets aren’t the usual murders, but the strange and the bizarre murders that can cause perplexity and even fear.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the story, and highly recommend checking out the PCU mysteries if you haven’t already.
Rating: 8/10

NOTE: I really like this story, I just can’t place my thoughts together coherently to tell you about it today, so don’t let this lackadaisical review keep you from checking out Bryant & May.

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