Full Dark House

Full Dark House (2003) Christopher Fowler A Bryant & May Mystery

Full Dark House is the first Bryant & May mystery. An explosion destroys the Peculiar Crimes Unit, and Arthur Bryant is believed to have been inside. In order to discover the course and cause of the bombing, John May has to go back 60 years to the first case Bryant & May worked on as partners.

This story is written in two separate time lines: the present timeline as May attempts to discover who bombed their building, and the past time (which takes up the larger portion of the story) as Bryant and May first meet and become partners, and seek a killer who is haunting the Palace theater.

There many different themes (so to speak) in this story. In the current timeline we see May and Bryant struggling with their age, and their ability to continue to work. In the past we learn how they came to be partners, and also see life in wartime London during the blitz.

Having already read the third book, part of the mystery/surprise of Full Dark House wasn’t as surprising as it could have been, yet knowing one specific result did not tell me how the result came about, nor did it less my enjoyment of discovering how that result came about. Plus, there were several other mysteries to be discovered.

The interesting thing about this book is that as a mystery I didn’t really feel like I was given enough details to figure out whodunit on my own. But it didn’t really matter, because getting there was really the important part. The bits about the shortages and the death and the bombs keeping everyone up at night–yet somehow they still manged to live–I mean really live–throughout the whole thing; the meeting of the two detectives and the formation of their strange unit, and their unorthodox methods; the differences between May and Bryant, as May embraced technology and seemed younger than his years, while Bryant was all but allergic to technology, and continually came across as far older than May, despite the very slight difference in their ages.

Bryant is eccentric–what is interesting is his eccentricities seem far greater when he is viewed as a young man than as an older man. Some traits in older gentlemen are excused if not almost expected, while those same traits in a younger man seem far more strange and unusual. And the difference between young man starting out and successful detective with sixty years experience doesn’t hurt either.

If you like British mysteries, then I would recommend Full Dark House. I would also recommend starting here, as opposed to starting at a later book. And when I finish the next book, I may just mail these to my grandmother. I think she’ll also enjoy them, plus she’ll be able to complain about the money I spent on mailing them to her.
Rating: 7/10

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