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Zusatztext "Highly unusual ... exciting and original.... It starts with a violent death in the lobby of the legendary Savoy Hotel and quickly expands to include art vandalism! Gilbert and Sullivan! and a host of other peculiarities."— Chicago Tribune "A twisty thriller! full of action and plot surprises."— Publishers Weekly “Invulnerable! genial and crafty.” — Los Angeles Times “They’re old! they’re cranky! and their chaotic work habits inevitably lead to disaster. But life always seems livelier whenever Arthur Bryant and John May are on a case!” — New York Times Book Review “Cranky! eccentric! and brilliant! Bryant and May dispense fascinating bits of knowledge as they solve supposedly unsolvable crimes.” — Cleveland Plain Dealer Informationen zum Autor Christopher Fowler was the acclaimed author of the award-winning Peculiar Crimes Unit mysteries: Full Dark House, The Water Room, Seventy-Seven Clocks, Ten Second Staircase, White Corridor, The Victoria Vanishes, Bryant & May on the Loose, Bryant & May off the Rails, The Memory of Blood, The Invisible Code, Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart, Bryant & May and the Burning Man, Bryant & May: Strange Tide, Bryant & May: Wild Chamber, Bryant & May: Hall of Mirrors, Bryant & May: The Lonely Hour, Bryant & May: Oranges & Lemons, Bryant & May: London Bridge Is Falling Down, and Bryant & May: Peculiar London. In 2015 Fowler won the coveted Crime Writers’ Association Dagger in the Library Award in recognition for his body of work. Christopher Fowler died in 2023. Klappentext A mysterious stranger in outlandish Edwardian garb defaces a Pre-Raphaelite painting in the National Gallery. Then a guest at the exclusive Savoy Hotel is fatally bitten by a marshland snake. Over the next several days, an outbreak of increasingly bizarre crimes will hit London—and, fittingly, come to the attention of the Peculiar Crimes Unit. Art vandalism, an exploding suspect, pornography, rat poison, Gilbert and Sullivan musicals, secret societies...and not a single suspect in sight. The killer they're chasing has a dark history, a habit of staying hidden, and time itself on his side. Detectives May and Bryant are racing the clock and this time the bell may be tolling for them. Chapter One Lights Out She recognized the symptoms immediately. The stipple of sweat in the small of her back. Ice-heat prickling her forehead. A sense of skittering panic in the pit of her stomach. As she walked faster, she thought: This is absurd, it can't harm me . But beneath her mind's voice ran another, dark and urgent. It's not the night, but what waits in it . The sun had barely set, but the road ahead was indistinct in the fading light. She refused to consider what might be out there. The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman , hissed the voice, a phrase recalled from her schooldays. She had no intention of meeting the prince this evening, and quickened her pace, not daring to look back. The clouds of night opened like ink blossoming in water, threatening to overtake her. Blackbirds skirted the trees, taking measure of the rising wind. For as long as she could remember, Jerry Gates had been terrified of the dark. The cause of this nyctophobia was beyond the reach of recollection: some early trauma at the top of the stairs, perhaps. Her mother accused her of having an overactive imagination; she made it sound like a harmful thing. Others would have seen misted fields on either side of the road, bare elm trees blurring in the dusk. Jerry could see demons swarming. She tried to read her watch, but it was too dark. Screw Nicholas and his country weekend , she thought. If he'd shown some warning sign of his intentions, she would never have come in the first place. The man should have been wearing a red toggle, Pull To Inflate Ego , like a...
