Full Dark House

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Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler

This is an entertaining read, but I thought that it was a later book in the series that had been written after the characters and their relationship had been firmly established. I was thinking throughout the book that I should read the earlier books rather than start at the end. As it turns out, this is the first book in the Bryan and May series. I was confused by the fact that the book starts with the two detectives being quite elderly and Bryant being killed and then using that point to flashback to their meeting in the 1940 London of the Blitz.

Normally, the origin story of characters is saved for later.

The story is set in both 1940 and the 2000s. The mysteries are connected across time. In the 1940s version, May is 19 years old and sent to the “Peculiar Crimes Unit” - a unit ginned up as a place to send crimes that are too unusual to expect to be solved - where he meets Arthur Bryant, who is 23. Bryant is weird in an early Sherlock Holmes way, but unlike Holmes, Bryant's theories can wildly misfire in his enthusiasm. May is the solid and sensible one who can relate to normal human beings.

The 1940 mystery involves a series of improbable killings in a theater. The 2000s mystery involves Bryant's death. The story cuts back and forth between the mysteries with most of the attention focused on the killings in the Paradise Theater. The story was well-written with a few problems. I thought the bonding of Bryant and May was a bit too pat and would have made more sense if I had read later stories. Bryant's approach to the 1940s mystery was, again, a bit too pat.

Another thing that was odd was the characterization of Bryant as a prematurely old man. this might have been due to the fact that I was listening to the audiobook where the narrator used a querulous old man's voice for the 23-year-old Bryant, but Bryant in the book is given a heart condition and a censorious attitude toward women that seem inappropriate for one so young.

I read this book on the recommendation of a list that presented supernatural mystery stories. The supernatural elements are clearly gestured at in this book, but those elements are not really the motor of the story. Rather, they offer some spice. All in all, this is an enjoyable book and I can easily imagine a reader becoming a fan of the series.