The Thames is London's most important yet neglected artery. When a young woman is found chained to a post in the tide, no one can understand how she came to be drowned there. That's only part of the problem. Bryant's deteriorating condition prevents him from handling the case. To make matters worse, May makes a fatal error of judgment that knocks him out of action.

In an adventure that's as twisting as the river, will there be anything left of the Peculiar Crimes Unit when it's over?

Listening Length

15 hours and 13 minutes
Author

Christopher Fowler
Narrator

Tim Goodman
Audible release date

March 31, 2016
Language

English
Publisher

W. F. Howes Ltd
ASIN

B01DMK9N6Q
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	15 hours and 13 minutes
Author	Christopher Fowler
Narrator	Tim Goodman
Audible.com Release Date	March 31, 2016
Publisher	W. F. Howes Ltd
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B01DMK9N6Q
Best Sellers Rank	#226,760 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #4,093 in Police Procedural Mysteries #6,892 in Crime Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) #20,104 in Police Procedurals (Books)

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5

367 global ratings

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4 star		25%
3 star		3%
2 star		1%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Ahh, I'm happy again.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 21, 2016

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It is so easy for me to love a Bryant and May novel. They give me the things I want most when I pick up a mystery novel. This one has an explanation for what has been ailing Arthur Bryant - author Christopher Fowler says he has been giving us clues through the last three books but I have to confess to not being eagle-eyed enough to pick up on them - so now I'm happy again that Arthur and John are actually investigating normally without Arthur's health issues intruding to such a large extent. Well, as normal as the Peculiar Crimes Unit can ever get. (By the way, have you ever wondered what happens with the phone calls the two Daves take when everybody else is too busy to answer the calls? Because the mind just boggles!)

This novel uses the tides of the River Thames as the means for solving the mysterious deaths which happen on this one small stretch of beach along the river. And let's not forget the human appendage that's involved which seems to simply muddy everything up but in reality provides a lot of answers. It was an accumulation of historical knowledge and modern sleuthing which, once again, provided the solution to the crimes. I enjoyed catching up with the continuing cast, was sorry to be losing one of the cast, and still feel so sorry for Raymond Land. Probably, in the long run, he's the most normal and sane one of the bunch.

Great fun for readers who like their fictional characters to be loaded with quirks and personalities, but who also want a serious puzzle to solve right along with the police. I suppose there isn't any reason not to begin reading the series here, but if you do you will not enjoy the questions and tensions the author had built up over the welfare of Arthur Bryant through the previous three novels. Just go ahead and read them all, but remember the first word in the name of their crime unit is "peculiar" and a peculiar group they are.

9 people found this helpful

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Blue in Washington (Barry Ballow)

Riverine preoccupations - riparian delights - 4+

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 28, 2017

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It's never dull at the Peculiar Crimes Unit of the London Police. Mainly because the idiosyncratic cops assigned there are always up to their earlobes in some bizarre mayhem--often involving their own personal lives. The two lead characters, Arthur Bryant and John May, are senior citizens who somehow ferret out clues and organize investigations in ways not endorsed by the powers that be. Bryant, in particular, lives on his own mental planet, and in "Strange Tide", is working on a personal mystery: why is he rapidly losing his mental faculties and slipping into hourly hallucinations?
The central mystery of "Strange..." involves the appearance of bodies and body parts in the Thames River on a daily basis. Not much links the murders at first, but eventually a trail begins to move toward a Libyan con man who is a local hit with bored housewives. The plot actually becomes a bit secondary to the novel as author Christopher Fowler dives deep into the history and lore of the Thames and double-wraps the storyline with a metaphysical blanket of the significance of the river in renewal, rebirth, etc. Interesting, but a bit overdone, perhaps. Not really so important, as Fowler takes Arthur Bryant on such new flights of fancy and self-investigation that the best parts of the story are, once again, about him and his mates in the PCU.
Longtime fans of this series will love this latest episode, especially since there is some happy redemption at book's end. For anyone who hasn't yet read a PCU book, an earlier story in the series, might be a better place to start. The important thing is to start! This is a highly entertaining and very original series that is always full of surprises and plenty of laughs.

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lisaleo (Lisa Yount)

Mystery centering on London's great river

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 31, 2016

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I’m not going to waste this review telling you how much fun the Bryant and May mysteries are; chances are, if you’re reading a book as far into the series as this one is, you already know. If not, go back to the beginning and read ‘em all: you’ve got lots of treats ahead of you.

The special thing about this volume is its focus on the history and mythology of the Thames. Bryant’s encyclopedic, if eccentrically scattershot, knowledge of London history and geography of course is prominent in all the books, and the Thames (specifically in that case its underground tributaries) was featured in at least one other, The Water Room (perhaps the best book in the series), but I was glad to see it return here. I would really love to get Bryant; his less imaginative but equally knowledgeable predecessor by two centuries, Charles Horton of the River Police (hero of Lloyd Shepherd’s excellent mystery series); and policeman Peter Grant and his friends the goddesses (and a few gods) of the Thames and its tributaries (in Ben Aaronovitch’s equally excellent urban fantasy series) together for a riverside party and listen to the resulting conversation! I can imagine, for instance, what Aaronovitch’s salty-tongued ladies would have to say to a character in this Bryant and May book who burbles to his disciples about “the fair nymphs of Tamesas, keeping time with the billow of her crystal waves, carry[ing] us to the Ocean with her ebb.”

The other lovely thing about this volume is that it exists at all. At the end of the one just before it, Bryant appeared to be suffering from some form of growing dementia that went well beyond his beloved usual craziness, and he was last seen walking off into the fog to “say goodbye to London.” I was afraid he was saying goodbye to us, too, so I was delighted to find that this was not the case—and the author promises a further volume as well. I hope that the Peculiar Crimes Unit and its equally peculiar detectives will be around for a very long time!

7 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

CC Man

Pensioner Policemen Prevail

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 20, 2017

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Over the course of some 13 Bryant & May novels Mr Fowler has built a quirky, spooky and rather wonderful world. His two pensioner policemen Bryant and May share the spotlight with that other main character, the city of London itself with its 2000 years of existence and the (usually) dark deeds that twine throughout every one of those years. Mr Fowler delights in shoehorning details of the city's past into his books and bringing them up to date as part of the plot background for this unique series. And so it goes with Strange Tide, with the River Thames front and centre in this novel. The Peculiar Crimes Unit is called in when a young girl is found drowned, chained to the Thames banking. How did she get there? Why are there no tracks of the murderer on the river mud? It's a locked room murder mystery in the open air. As usual Mr Fowler fleshes out the plot with obscure London history, humour, attacks on money-driven insensitive development and the loss of historic city fabric, institutions and attitudes. Coupled to that he rather neatly resolves the recurring plot line in recent novels regarding the apparent early dementia of the aged Arthur Bryant (according to the timeline of the novels Bryant and May have been detectives since the Second World War - time gets bent in these books). As the bodies start piling up with no solution in sight Bryant consults his usual list of London eccentrics for inspiration - everything from defrocked academics to white witches. Meanwhile the more conventional police authorities are hoping they will fail, giving them the excuse to shut down this distressingly shambolic unit with its embarrassingly high crime solving rate. The plot brings in everything from a go-getting illegal refugee, sinister businessmen, people smugglers - oh, and of course, Gericault's painting, The Raft Of The Medusa, naturally. It all gets wrapped up in the end with bad guys caught and good (almost) guys free. Although I enjoyed Strange Tide I didn't feel it was quite as spookily sinister as some of the best entries in the series and the plot was perhaps a tad unconvincing in the end. But any Bryant & May is better than none at all. Long may the series continue.

2 people found this helpful

Monosabio

Bryant and May deliver again

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 11, 2020

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Always a pleasure to read another in this series. I cannot decide whether the constant attempts to shut the unit down and Arthur's unusual activities are merely devices to pad out the story but am prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt. Well written, as always, with interesting London information as usual. The characters of the members of the unit are not particularly advanced which is a shame as they are surely capable of more development but what do I know?... other than that I really enjoy these stories and look forward to them continuing.

Wendy McFarlane

A fantastic addition to an already fabulously addictive series

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 24, 2016

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A fantastic addition to an already fabulously addictive series. We join the PCU where we left them in the last book; waiting to see how Arthur would fare and whether or not his decent into madness would result in the end of the line for the detectives. This is an absorbing read, incorporating all the characters which make this such a unique series and one which I hope will run for several more books. I won't write too much about the story as to leak how it pans out would spoil the tale but safe to say it includes all the wacky elements we have come to expect, giving another book stuffed with history and folklore from old London town and a grand mystery to solve. With each book I think they can't get any better, but they do. What an amazing achievement from this talented author who I hope has many more eccentric ideas and plots up his sleeve to keep this series running. Highly recommended!

Nanette

That they never end

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 21, 2022

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Have sat up through the night unable to stop reading, very addictive, read one and you are hooked

One person found this helpful

Kindle Customer

A must read episode of a must read series.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 4, 2016

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One of the best of a superb series. Highly convoluted but very satisfying. Equal to the superlative 'Water Room', my favourite in the series. Cannot recommend the series too highly, perfect binge reading material with a unique ambience; Fowler is a tricksy writer at the best of times but this series has always seemed to me to have his heart deeply entwined in it. Driven by character more than anything else, and the biggest character is the City of London itself. Wonderful!

One person found this helpful

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