{"id":1529,"date":"2009-12-02T19:56:25","date_gmt":"2009-12-03T00:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=1529"},"modified":"2021-06-03T15:38:23","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T19:38:23","slug":"victoria-vanishes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/1529","title":{"rendered":"Victoria Vanishes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Victoria Vanishes<\/a><\/em> (2008) Christopher Fowler<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.) <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the story, and highly recommend checking out the PCU mysteries if you haven’t already.
\nRating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

NOTE<\/strong>: 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,30,8,291,42],"tags":[256,255,257],"class_list":["post-1529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-8-10","category-british","category-mystery","category-paper","category-police","tag-bryant-may","tag-christopher-fowler","tag-peculiar-crimes-unit"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-oF","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1980,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/1980","url_meta":{"origin":1529,"position":0},"title":"Bryant & May on the Loose","author":"Michelle","date":"September 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Bryant & May on the Loose (2009) Christopher Fowler At the close of Victoria Vanishes, the PCU was disbanded, the staff placed on leave, and Bryant remains at home, barely able to get out of bed and slowly slipping away. However, the accidental discovery of a body by a staff\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Bryant-and-May-on-the-Loose.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2790,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/2790","url_meta":{"origin":1529,"position":1},"title":"Bryant & May Off the Rails","author":"Michelle","date":"February 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Bryant & May Off the Rails (2010) Christopher Fowler I have to admit, I put off reading this book for several months, and once I picked it up, put it down several times before I could actually get into the story. This has absolutely nothing to do with the story,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "British"","block_context":{"text":"British","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/british"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Bryant-and-May-Off-the-Rails.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":696,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/696","url_meta":{"origin":1529,"position":2},"title":"White Corridor","author":"Michelle","date":"October 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"White Corridor (2007) Christopher Fowler Once again the Peculiar Crimes Unit is in danger of being closed. After Raymond Land decided to close the until for a week's vacation, a member of the unit is found killed, while Bryant and May are on their way to one of Bryant's spiritualist\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "British"","block_context":{"text":"British","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/british"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/White-Corridor.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8705,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/8705","url_meta":{"origin":1529,"position":3},"title":"Full Dark House","author":"Michelle","date":"January 24, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Full Dark House (2003) Christopher Fowler Bryant & May met during the bombing of London during WWII, when May joined the force and was set to the Peculiar Crimes Unit, where Bryant was the lead detective. The story starts in the modern day, when the PCU office has been blown\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "8\/10"","block_context":{"text":"8\/10","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/8-10"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/08\/Full-Dark-House.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":345,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/345","url_meta":{"origin":1529,"position":4},"title":"Ten Second Staircase","author":"Michelle","date":"February 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Ten Second Staircase (2007) Christopher Fowler Ten Second Staircase is the fourth Bryant and May mystery. A controversial sculptor is found dead in one of her pieces, and the only witness describes an impossible killer. Meanwhile, Raymond Land has complained one too many times about the PCU (Peculiar Crimes Unit)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "British"","block_context":{"text":"British","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/british"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Ten-Second-Staircase.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":300,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/300","url_meta":{"origin":1529,"position":5},"title":"The Water Room","author":"Michelle","date":"August 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The Water Room (2004) Christopher Fowler The second Bryant & May mystery, The Water Room takes place a month or so after the events of Full Dark House--at least the current day events. The Peculiar Crimes Unit is being rebuilt, and during the reconstruction, the unit is at loose ends,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "British"","block_context":{"text":"British","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/british"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Water-Room.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}