May was finding it increasingly hard to concentrate on Bryant’s theories when, just a short distance from London, the bodies of so many innocent civilians were being dragged from the smoking ruins of a town. Their case seemed absurd and almost pointless by comparison. [p. 217]
First in the Bryant and May series, read for book club. It begins in contemporary London, when ageing detective John May investigates the death of his longtime colleague Arthur Bryant in an explosion. He finds himself remembering their very first case together, in wartime London, with the perils of the Blitz complicating a series of murders at the Palace Theatre. The crimes coincide with the opening of a scandalous new production of Offenbach's 'Orpheus in the Underworld' -- and the plot of that operetta may hold clues to the pattern of the crimes. Bryant's knowledge of classical mythology allows him to offer arcane interpretations of the murders, while May, more down-to-earth and empathetic, is better at talking to the performers and the theatre's staff. Meanwhile modern-day May is bemoaning modernity and the loss of the rationality he valued. He's also trying to unravel a set of clues which lead to a curiously bland (and predictable) solution.
The first victim (a dancer, dead in a lift with her feet cut off) is named Tanya, which did not endear me to this novel. Nor did the frequent changes of viewpoint (sometimes in a single paragraph) or the author's tendency to provide historical context which wouldn't have been known to the characters. ("Last month, the corner of Leicester Square had been bombed flat, and holes had been blown in the District Line railway tunnel at Blackfriars; right now the bureau would be busy suppressing the truth, retouching photographs, stemming negative information, tucking away all morale-damaging reports until after the war." [p. 130]) It's as though he needs to keep reminding us that the events of the novel take place in two different times.
All of which sounds very negative, but I think I just wasn't in the mood for Fowler's voice. Possibly I was expecting something more supernatural, something in the vein of the Rivers of London novels. Full Dark House is the first in a long and popular series, so it's possible I would get on better with later volumes. I did enjoy Bryant's bookish, classics-inflected utterances ("You’re part of the maieutic process... Socratic midwifery... You know, the easing out of ideas." [p. 280]) especially in contrast to May's mundanity and his tendency to stare at or flirt with every female character. But the sense of a budding friendship between two very different men is well done.
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