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Christopher Fowler

Bryant & May Off the Rails Paperback – January 1, 2011

by Christopher Fowler (Author)

285 ratings

Book 8 of 18: Peculiar Crimes Unit

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They've been given just one week to find a killer they'd caught once before ...Arthur Bryant, John May and the Peculiar Crimes Unit are on the trail of an enigma: a young man called Mr Fox. But his identity is false, his links to society are invisible and his home yields no clues. All they know is that somehow he escaped from a locked room and murdered one of their best and brightest. Now the detectives are being lured down into the darkest recesses of the London Underground where their quarry, expertly disguised, has struck again. Their search takes them into the vast labyrinth of tunnels, a subterranean world full of legends and ghost stations, which tie the city together. Edging closer to what lies hidden beneath the city - and to the madness that is driving a man to murder - Bryant and May are about to uncover a mystery as bizarre as anything they have ever encountered ...

Print length

384 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Bantam
Publication date

January 1, 2011
Dimensions

5 x 0.91 x 7.8 inches
ISBN-10

0553819704
ISBN-13

978-0553819700
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bantam (January 1, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0553819704
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0553819700
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.1 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.91 x 7.8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #517,383 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews:
285 ratings

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Christopher Fowler

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Christopher Fowler was born in Greenwich, London. He is the multi award-winning author of 45 novels and short story collections, and the author of the Bryant & May mysteries. His novels include ‘Roofworld’, 'Spanky', 'Psychoville', 'Calabash' and two volumes of memoirs, the award-winning 'Paperboy' and 'Film Freak'. In 2015 he won the CWA Dagger In The Library. His latest books are 'England's Finest' and 'Oranges & Lemons'. Among his recent collections are 'Red Gloves', 25 stories of unease, marked his first 25 years of writing, and the e-book 'Frightening', a new set of short stories. Other later novels include the comedy-thriller 'Plastic', the Hammer-style monster adventure 'Hell Train', the haunted house chiller 'Nyctophobia' and the JG Ballard-esque 'The Sand Men'. Coming up in 2021 is the 20th Bryant & May book, 'London Bridge Is Falling Down'.

He has written comedy and drama for BBC radio, script, features and columns for national press, graphic novels, the play ‘Celebrity’ and the ‘War Of The Worlds’ videogame for Paramount, starring Sir Patrick Stewart. His short story 'The Master Builder' became a feature film entitled 'Through The Eyes Of A Killer', starring Tippi Hedren. Among his awards are the Edge Hill prize 2008 for 'Old Devil Moon', the Last Laugh prize 2009 for 'The Victoria Vanishes' and again in 2015 for 'The Burning Man'.

Christopher has achieved several ridiculous schoolboy fantasies, releasing a terrible Christmas pop single, becoming a male model, writing a stage show, posing as the villain in a Batman graphic novel, running a night club, appearing in the Pan Books of Horror and standing in for James Bond. After living in the USA and France he is now married and lives in London's King's Cross and Barcelona.

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4.5 out of 5

285 global ratings

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4 star		27%
3 star		8%
2 star		1%
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gammyjill

Joseph Wambaugh in England?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 24, 2012

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British author Christopher Fowler's latest novel, "Bryant & May Off the Rails" is the eighth in his series about London's "Peculiar Crimes Unit". The unit, which is stocked with interesting cop odd-balls, is charged with investigating crimes that have fallen between cracks by the Metropolitan Police. As the series continues, Arthur Bryant and his partner, John May, are trying to find a serial killer who has eluded capture after escaping from custody and killing a popular member of the Unit. Also, someone - another murderer - is striking victims in the Tube system, in particular at Kings Cross/St Pancras Station. The PCU is also in grave danger of being disbanded. So, a week in the life of the Unit takes on added importance as they're fighting on all fronts.

The most interesting part of the novel - other than the interplay between the characters - is Fowler's writing about the London Tube system. There's a lot going on underground and Fowler brings the tunnels to life in his novel.

This novel is the first of the series I've read, though I do have Fowler's latest in hardback in my TBR pile. His writing reminds me of Joseph Wambaugh's Los Angeles cop series. Terribly politically incorrect, Wambaugh's eccentric characters - who continue from book to book - are far more interesting than the plots, which are basically "vignettes" about police and civilians in Los Angeles (or in the latest book, San Pedro).

Fowler's plot in "Bryant and May" is definitely secondary to his characters. I don't know if that's true in all his books, but it was in this book. I enjoyed the book and am looking forward to reading both his new book and his back list. If you're a Wambaugh fan, you'll like Fowler.

7 people found this helpful

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Blue in Washington (Barry Ballow)

Terror in the Tube

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 25, 2011

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Quirky, funny and entertaining contemporary crime thriller featuring the fictitious Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU) of the London Police led by senior citizen detectives, Bryant and May. The PCU, out of favor as always with their more conventionally-minded superiors and other police units, are on the trail of a serial killer operating in and out of the London Underground. Non-traditional sleuthing, the hallmark of the Bryan and May series, is front and center here as the intrepid but squirrelly detectives track Mr. Fox--a psychopath who escaped justice an earlier episode--and other bad guys slaughtering innocents in the depths of the tube. There is a lot of interesting history and information about the London transport system and the city itself built into this highly original crime thriller. As usual, author Christopher Fowler supplies an interesting cast of characters to play off the principals as well as an inventive plot that has plenty of veerings and red herrings. The conclusion is fine, though it neglects to tie off part of the mystery completely. Maybe Mr. Fowler has something more in mind for PCU? You can bet on it.

Overall, a good fun read and not a bad introduction to the series.

One person found this helpful

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Mikey

Love this series

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 30, 2021

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Fowler is a magician with words but this story is a little drawn out.
I’m not giving anything away but there are 2 killers.
The story revolves around a group of university house mates who hang out a particular pub.
It gets very involved with the PCU following them and as usual the deciphering of their connection to the mystery.
The real bad guy is discovered eventually but we are left hanging with his disposition. (Is he really caught?)

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bookgal

Endlessly Charming and Funny

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 20, 2013

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Every single book in this series is a joy and a treasure but beware, Bryant and May and their supporting cast are some of the quirkiest characters you will ever experience. They are not for everyone. And I think you definitely have to start with the first book in the series to truly understand the full story — about two over the hill detectives that solve cold cases in a manner that is little short of amazing and sure to confound their superiors. There is never a point A to point B clue in these books.

In this book, Arthur Bryant and John May and the other members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit have been saved as a department but they have only one week to recapture a murderer that they had caught and lost. Its a funny, intriguing case surrounding the London underground; I had a hard time putting it down and yet didn't want the story to end. Bryant and May may be older than the hills but nothing much gets past them in these witty case stories. Long may they live in Fowler's imagination and creative writing.

12 people found this helpful

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Alexander

An Intriguing Tale

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 22, 2013

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The author, as I am, is a Londoner with a fascination for its history. Every book he writes adds to my better understanding of some arcane piece of minutae. His playful adoption of an everyday English box of matches (Bryant & May) as the name of his protagonists is a delightful conceit and his support players similarly are drawn out as utterly believable and yet have to be untreal. If you sit down with a pen and paper, it becomes apparent that Bryant & May have each got be older than 100 years, but in the context could indeed have become a happy backwater of criminal solving that just goes on and on. In any civil service environment, if no-one can work out to whom you are answerable, then no-one can possess the lever to control you or stop your salary. Anyone who reads this tale is recommended to start at the beginning of the series and work their way happily through the near dozen stories. I have. And I intend to restart the series shortly.

Alex Mathieson

2 people found this helpful

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Stephen Mann

Bryant and May Strike Again.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 20, 2018

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I loved this story about a murderer escaped from the custody of The Peculiar Crimes Unit, and a seemingly unrelated murder in the London Underground. Bryan and May are interesting characters, as are the rest of the cast, and the story makes sense for the mostbpart, though I found the major McGuffin implausible.

The book suffered a bit from the author’s desire to make it look too much like a sitcom by installing set-piece pratfalls, but I can forgive that.

Four stars.

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Mark Pack

Another great Christopher Fowler crime novel with a rich London settting

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 5, 2013

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Bryant & May Off the Rails features once again Christopher Fowler's two ageing London detectives from the Peculiar Crimes Unit, Arthur Bryant and John May. It also features two departures from the norm for this series.

Normally the books are free-standing, with characters developing across the different novels but the crimes in the books isolated from each other. This time, the plot picks up where the predecessor, Bryant and May on the Loose , ended with the police chasing the same criminal, Mr. Fox. Moreover, although the book is once again very firmly set in London, the slice of London history which nominally provides the backdrop this time, the London Underground, is not really that important. Sure, plenty of the action happens in stations and tunnels. But the particular history of these parts of London doesn't influence the story very much. It provides a scenic backdrop but not one that influences the plot in ways that would be different from one set on a train network in another city. What is more, one of the few Tube details on which a part of the plot hinges, about disused passenger tunnels in stations being open to the public, is not accurate.

That, however, does not take away from a once again entertaining and at times very funny detective story. The set-up of suspects all in a room being questioned by detectives is saved from being a clichéd Agatha Christie cast-off by Fowler instead using it to play homage to her, and having his characters acknowledge the reference.

The story is really two different plots woven into one, which makes for more tension and intrigue, though you have to turn a blind eye to the improbable convergence of them at the end, with both plots ending up culminating on the same few square metres of the same platform at the same Underground station.

As is common in the series, there is a rich cast of characters, with long-running regular minor figures getting their moments of character development and description, making it feel like there is a large and rounded cast of characters which we readers are just happening to get to see a slice of. Fowler repeats his neat trick from earlier volumes of using memos and a staff roster at the start of the book to quickly bring new readers up to speed on some of the basics of the cast and setting (enough for the book to work even if you have not read its predecessor), and to remind longer-term readers of salient points they may have forgotten.

All very enjoyable.

One person found this helpful

Wendy McFarlane

Highly recommended.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 19, 2014

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Part two, following on from On the Loose. This sees the team out hunting again for the elusive Mr Fox. He has given them the slip and has gone to ground in his lair; the London Underground. Also happening below the streets of London town are several strange murders, inexplicable to the team until Bryant has an idea and everyone knows what that means! Rallying his wacky esoteric friends he persuades his side kick, John May and co to follow him into the maze of dark tunnels where mysterious folk roam just out of sight of the underground network of surveilance cameras. Can they catch Mr Fox before he destroys them all, read it and see! This has so many laugh out loud moments as the team stumble and bumble their way through yet another controversial investigation. Don't underestimate the plots either, they are cleverly mapped out with so many twists and turns it's impossible to work out "who dun it" I adore these novels and am eagerly waiting for the next to drop onto the mat from Amazon. Highly recommended.

One person found this helpful

tess

Great read.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 18, 2021

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If you've never read a Bryant and May you're missing out. They have the warmth and amusement of what's nearly a family, crazy elderly detectives who somehow get to the bottom of modern conundrums, the tang of historical settings, sprightly and entertaining language, with a perennial will they escape being shut down motif. Brilliant.

Jcloth

Like all the Bryant and May series

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 22, 2015

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Like all the Bryant and May series, this is a superb novel, inventive plot, splendid charactarisations, fascinating facts, and told with a wonderful tongue in cheek humour. Each successive novel just keeps getting better. My only criticism is that the eponymous heroes often engage in rather artificial conversations, which I suspect are a vocalisation of Christopher Fowler's views and opinions, but, hey, author's privilege?

Bryher Bear

Well written, great plots, believable characters

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 31, 2020

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Just love these books!
Intelligently researched with mind blowing information about so many aspects of London.
The main characters are delightful in their eccentricity.
The stories are thrilling.

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