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Ten Second Staircase (SIGNED)

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Christopher Fowler's "Ten Second Staircase" is a seriocomic locked room mystery about a series of murders that may prove to be the undoing of the North London Peculiar Crimes Unit. The PCU tackles high profile cases that are politically sensitive and liable to cause public distress or panic. Two elderly gentlemen, Arthur Bryant and John May, have been in the unit for years and their supervisor, Raymond Land, sends a memo to the Senior Home Liaison Officer complaining about these two "geriatric detectives." Bryant and May have been a constant thorn in Land's side because of their unorthodox and sometimes bizarre behavior and methodology.

The latest case to bedevil the PCU is the death of Saralla White, a female artist who was drowned in her own water-filled artwork. An eyewitness makes the unbelievable claim that he saw a highwayman in a tricorn hat, cape, and thigh boots atop a stallion at the crime scene. Bryant and May follow a host of leads and come up empty. Soon, the very same highwayman is sighted at the scene of other murders, and he seems to be taunting the investigators. The pressure is on; if the PCU fails to capture the killer, it is likely that the unit will be shut down.

Christopher Fowler's writing is reminiscent of Jasper Fforde's in that both authors combine outlandish and serious elements in their stories. Like Fforde, Fowler is highly literate and his descriptive writing and dialogue are immensely entertaining. In addition, Fowler intelligently explores such themes as how criminals have changed over the years, and how new police methods, such as DNA testing and computer technology, can never completely replace the experience and brainpower of a highly intelligent and intuitive sleuth. The author also touches on the politics of policing and the shallowness of our celebrity obsessed culture.

Fowler's characters are all beautifully depicted. Bryant, who is three years older than May, is a Luddite who destroys mobile phones with alarming speed. He drives a broken down rust bucket, dresses in outlandish clothing, and is cheerfully insubordinate to his superiors. He consults "disgraced experts, discredited psychics, and registered felons," in his efforts to solve his cases. May is a bit more conventional and technologically savvy than Bryant, but he is also fiercely protective of his old-fashioned partner. Much to his boss's displeasure, May brings in his granddaughter, April, an agoraphobic with a troubled past, to join the unit.

The mystery is completely implausible, but it also compelling and difficult to solve. My main reservation is that the narrative rambles on for over three hundred and fifty pages, when it could easily have been trimmed with no loss of coherence. "Ten Second Staircase" is filled with so many characters, themes, and plot lines, that it eventually feels cluttered. However, there is enough of value to garner it a recommendation for those patient readers who enjoy strange mysteries and even stranger investigators.

June 25, 2006
Crime
Offbeat Cops
By MARILYN STASIO
SOME crimes are just too bizarre to be processed through the normal channels of London's Metropolitan Police force. In the offbeat novels of Christopher Fowler, a special place is reserved for such oddities -- the Peculiar Crimes Unit, which was established during World War II to deal with cases that might cause "social panics and general public malaise." To the chagrin of the present-day police administration (and the delight of readers looking for something genuinely witty and original), this anachronistic department lingers on under the unorthodox command of Arthur Bryant and John May, misanthropic detectives long past the age of retirement and "altogether too vague, intellectual, socialist and downright arty" for the comfort of the establishment.

TEN SECOND STAIRCASE (Bantam, $24) is the fourth book in the series and a lively example of Fowler's imaginative approach to what is essentially a traditional whodunit. Here's how things typically work: the detectives are challenged to solve a crime so fantastic it beggars belief. May, the methodical fact-finder, will collate the data and try to apply some pattern of logic to the incredible events. Bryant, the crotchety genius who works by instinct, will look to London's dark and bloody past for enlightenment, believing that "criminals and victims were linked to the land, to history and to their own irrepressible natures." As historians, librarians, clairvoyants, exorcists and white witches are consulted, the plot bulges with strange facts and theories. They may or may not be germane to the case, but they're madly entertaining.

Fowler is in exuberant form here. His story begins with a series of elaborate executions of second-rate celebrities, carried out, according to eyewitnesses, by a masked highwayman on horseback. Seizing on the mythic stature of this figure, with its links to Robin Hood and other folk legends, Bryant speculates that the vigilante is a flesh-and-blood murderer "rehabilitated in the public mind as a hero, a people's champion." The question is, which disenfranchised group has conjured him up -- and what's the beef with celebrities?

The sleuths direct their attention to a public housing project in Clerkenwell, the historic stamping ground of the Knights Templars, where a turf war is under way between a gang of teenagers and a group of students from a nearby private school. For all their wisdom, Bryant and May are nearly undone by the motiveless malignity of these youths. The two detectives are, as a colleague puts it, compelled to update their mental software. While not exactly killing, the suspense is thrilling.

Arthur Bryant and John May are two of detective fiction's most unique anachronisms. The de facto heads of the London Police Department's Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU), Bryant and May have been investigating murders in their somewhat peculiar way for almost 60 years. Now well ensconced within senior status, the two, as well as the somewhat unusual personalities who assist them in the ramshackle PCU offices, attempt to maintain their relevance in the modern world, occasionally eschewing modern detection methods in favor of tried-and-true tactics that have held them in good stead for decades, even as the misdeeds of the past --- more often than not --- provide clues for present-day mayhem.

TEN SECOND STAIRCASE, the latest Bryant and May novel, involves a series of locked room mysteries, in which a noted personality of some dubious repute (a controversial artist, a minor celebrity, a notorious pederast) is found dead under ambiguous circumstances, possibly by ill fortune or accident, but probably by murder most foul. An unlikely figure, appearing to be an old English highwayman, is seen in the vicinity of each death; he leaves a somewhat cryptic calling card at each scene.

As if this was not enough, the PCU finds itself threatened, as in the past, with extinction. The unexpected and unofficial test for the ongoing survival of PCU is the resolution of its most notorious cold case, one that involves the so-called Leicester Square Vampire, a cold-blooded murderer whose victims include May's own daughter. Those who occasionally have taken Fowler to task in the past for what they have considered to be unlikely solutions to difficult puzzles will have reason to rejoice here, as the apparently impossible Highwayman murders are plausibly explained.

Bryant is a curmudgeon, but one cannot help but embrace him for his penchant for rude and unpredictable --- yet dead-on --- practical jokes. May, while being the more approachable and pragmatic of the pair, has an unrepentantly sweet side to himself, manifested by his gentle doting upon April, his agoraphobic granddaughter who in TEN SECOND STAIRCASE joins the PCU as a full-time member and brings her canny powers of observation to the fore.

There is so much to like here. Fowler gently rapid-fires from the mouths of Bryant or May bits of London history at the reader, and the tone, from first word to last, is so unrestrainedly British that while reading it one can almost feel the cobblestone beneath one's feet. At the same time, there is a great deal of understated dark humor to recommend. Think, if you will, of Agatha Christie resurrected to script "The Avengers" television series, and you'll have an idea of what's going on here. Rather than being formulistic writing, this is a comfortable familiarity, given that Fowler keeps his idiosyncratic characters fresh and interesting by...well, creating fresh and interesting characters to begin with.

This element, combined with Fowler's off-kilter storyline and intriguing criminals, makes TEN SECOND STAIRCASE the strongest entry in the series to date.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

Ten-second Staircase is another of the Byant and May mysteries.
It is possible to read these novels individually, but I would recommend starting at the beginning so that you can fully appreciate all the characters and understand the references that run throughout the series.

If you haven't read a Christopher Fowler novel before I would recommend 'Darkest Day' or 'Full Dark House' as an introduction to Bryant and May, or 'Disturbia' if you just want a brilliant novel.

In The Ten-Second Staircase a controversial artist has been drowned in her own installation (a tank filled with formaldehyde and a number of aborted foetuses!!) The only witness to the crime is a young schoolboy who was sketching in the room at the time of the murder. He says the crime was committed by a Highwayman on a horse...
Following this a number of minor celebrities are also murdered and each time the witnesses claim to have seen a Highwayman.

Soon London is in the grip of Highwayman- fever, with the gutter press claiming that he is a hero. Will Bryant and May be able to discover the true identity of the Highwayman and stop any further killing?

This is a really typical Fowler novel. Quirky, good fun and creepy in all the right places. He also throws in a few bits of London trivia along the way (For example, I now know why Georgian railings often have pine cones adorning them)

As usual, highly recommended.

Geriatric police detectives Arthur Bryant and John May know their careers are almost over. The long term partners realize it is just a matter of time before their cherished Peculiar Crimes Unit is downsized as the brass thinks the two fogies are obsolete and their cell with them.

Still Bryant and May want to go out on top solving their current cases just like they have always done. Neither is easy. The notorious Leicester Square Vampire is a cold case that is personal at least to May whose daughter was killed by the culprit. The other investigation involves uncovering who the lethal caped clad Highwayman seen riding a horse is before he or she kills another detested celebrity behind a locked door.

TEN SECOND STAIRCASE is a terrific police procedural that clearly honors the golden age mystery writers as well as fans of those classics. The story line is action-packed yet filled with plenty of humor as the two long time partners work the two cases while waiting for the brass to shut down their unit and retire both of them to the old police officers home. Thought crimes are odd to say the least; the police work is professional leading to strong investigations. Sub-genre fans will want to read this intelligent amusing investigative tale.

Harriet Klausner

When in comes to the classic British locked room mystery, the stuff that we associate with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, there is no contemporary writer more adept than Christopher Fowler. And "Ten Second Staircase" is one of his best.

While the aging and eccentric detective duo of John May and Arthur Bryant are no Holmes and Watson, they are certainly more unusual, at least as entertaining, and in many ways more interesting given the depth and complexities of Fowler's multiple story lines which transcend and sometimes overpower the core mystery. Cleverly conceived and elegantly written, "Ten Second Staircase" delivers a head-scratching whodunit while plumbing deep issues of morality, vigilantism, and restless youth. If this seems like a lot to swallow for a simple mystery, the talented Fowler pulls it off while maintaining his patented British tongue-in-cheek humor balanced with genuine suspense.

In this installment, an obnoxious artist is found dead, floating in her own piece of outrageous "art". The only eye witness to the apparent murder is a young teenager, visiting the gallery with his private school class. But the lad's description of the killer - a man on horseback dressed in the garb of an early 18th Century highwayman - stretches credibility and leaves the May/Bryant team with scant evidence and little to go on. When other minor - and annoying - celebrities start meeting grisly demises of their own, with reports of the "highwayman" in the vicinity, it appears a serial killer is on the loose. But rather than cowering in fear, Londoners view the killer more like a rock star, a modern day Robin Hood-like figure doing the city a service by clearing out some of the human vermin. Meanwhile, the improbable crew of May and Brant's "Peculiar Crimes Unit" are again under attack, sabotaged by their oily leader, Leslie Faraday, and highly in risk of being shut down at the hands of a heavy-handed thug hired by the home office.

Through a complex series of plots and subplots, Fowler shows no impatience - much like his cranking protagonists - in weaving his way to another satisfyingly bizarre conclusion. Intelligent, savvy, and insightful, Fowler's May/Bryant series in one which deserves more acclaim and a broader following. If you haven't discovered these guys yet,do yourself a literary and entertaining favor and make the acquaintance here.

In this fourth installment involving London's Peculiar Crimes Unit, especially the unit's two elderly icons, Arthur Bryant and John May, the team is fighting for their literal lives as higher-ups plot to close the unit down. Unconventional methods and scads of broken rules and laws are frequently employed by Bryant and May, although their younger co-workers tend to do things a little more conventionally.

A controversial artist is murdered right in her own display--fetuses floating in a tank of chemicals--and was reported by one of the children visiting the museum to have been thrown into the tank by a man on horseback wearing a historical costume. Obviously a job for the PCU, especially when The Highwayman (as he comes to be called) kills several more times and leaves them obscure clues until the bunch of them working together manage to piece them together and solve the crimes, as well as an old cold case from earlier in their career that's plagued them for many years.

I love this group of eccentric detectives! They all work a little differently, Bryant relying frequently on intuitive reasoning and May taking the more logical, deductive approach. The other members of the group, although featured in less detail, support them well. The mysteries are interesting and bizarre, and there are often ties to historical elements that lead you to learning a lot of cool things without realizing you're doing so. A wild, rollicking, unorthodox trek across London and across time with plenty of laughs and some very poignant moments as well--very enjoyable as always.

I have read every one of Christopher Fowlers Bryant & May mysteries and enjoyed every one. You get so much instructional historic info about London weaved into a fun and interesting murder. Very original material.

This is a fantastic Bryant and May mystery , top notch entertaining from Christopher Fowler at his very very best

Gee, this one left me kind of cold. Fowler can write and any individual three or four pages seem brilliant--packed with ideas, observations, lovely metaphors, and striking characters--mixed in with the social satire and the knack for creating a ghostly atmosphere from the miasma of old London. Yet the whole thing is miles and miles (and miles) too long and one comes away with the impression of a writer all too pleased with himself and his virtuosity. Maybe if Bryant and May were believable characters? Even Sir Henry Merrivale gets a little too Luddite and loud about it, and these two are like Merrivale to the 10th power.

People have made comparisons to the novels of John Dickson Carr but in my opinion, Dickson Carr, for all his faults, was a far better plotter and storyteller than Fowler. I don't want to reveal any spoilers here, but Carr would never have written the scene in which we find out that, after hundreds of pages believing it, an eyewitness account of an "impossible crime" proves to be a lie on the witness' part, thereby removing the "locked room" aspect in one fell swoop. Carr was not above providing footnotes to his text, saying something like "And as it turned out, every word that Mary Smith said was the truth, and the reader may take it for gospel." Well, graceless as it may be, I wish Fowler had adopted that device and had had the wits to think of a true "locked room" plot instead of one that depends on one person's word alone--the word of a liar.

All that business about the Leicester Square Vampire was completely extraneous and bogged down the entire rest of the book. I didn't care for the story, even though it claimed the life of May's daughter, and I was utterly non-surprised when April's agoraphobia got cured--that was a given from page one.

My verdict: it was okay, just a bit of a cheat, and his charming elderly sleuths he got out of an old Ealing comedy like THE LAVENDER HILL MOB. Add a star if you like whimsy.