CANR
WORK TITLE: BRYANT & MAY: THE LONELY HOUR
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.christopherfowler.co.uk/
CITY: London
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: British
LAST VOLUME: CANR 318
http://www.randomhouse.com/book/212001/the-invisible-code-by-christopher-fowler http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/19/books/the-invisible-code-by-christopher-fowler.html?_r=0
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born March 26, 1953, in London, England; son of William Edward and Lilian Kathleen Fowler; married.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Copywriter for various advertising agencies in London, England, 1972-78; Creative Partnership (film marketing firm), London, founder and creative director, 1979—. Also worked as a male model, night club manager, and acting stand-in.
AWARDS:British Fantasy Society Award for Best Short Story of the Year, 1998, for “Wageslaves,” and 2004, for “American Waitress,” and for Best Novella, 2005, for Breathe; August Derleth Novel of the Year Award, 2004, for Full Dark House; Edge Hill Prize, 2008, for Old Devil Moon; Last Laugh Prize, 2009, for The Victoria Vanishes; Green Carnation Prize, 2010, for Paperboy.
POLITICS: Democrat. RELIGION: Church of England (Anglican).WRITINGS
Also author of screenplays, including The Waiting Darkness, and of various British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) productions, including First Born and The Lady Downstairs. Contributing author for the movie The Most Boring Woman in the World. Creator of “War of the Worlds” videogame, Paramount, 2011.
The short story “The Master Builder” has been adapted as a television movie titled Through the Eyes of a Killer, by Columbia Broadcasting System. Several of the author’s short stories have been adapted for film, including “Left Hand Drive,” “On the Edge,” “Perfect Casting,” “The Most Boring Woman in the World,” and “Rainy Day Boys.”
SIDELIGHTS
“Christopher Fowler specializes in the Urban Nightmare,” wrote Pauline Morgan in the St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost, and Gothic Writers. “His novels and short stories are largely set in contemporary cities (usually London) and deal lth the nasty things that people do to each other. … In all his work he shows the nastier side of human nature, and the best demonstrates how the minds of apparently normal people can degenerate. The horror is that atrocities can be committed by anyone and you may not suspect them until it is too late.”
Among Fowler’s horror novels is Roofworld, which the author once described to CA as the story of “rival gangs who live on the rooftops of London and fight arcane battles for supremacy.” “The resulting book,” noted Morgan, “takes on the persona of a fast-paced detective novel with elements of farce, a tiny hint of the supernatural, and a feeling that a lot of the basics of the situation have been glossed over.”
The horror novel Rune is a novel that Fowler once described to CA as the story of “a disparate group of Londoners who band together to prevent the Devil’s return to earth via multinational [corporations] and modern technology.” In this novel, advertising executive Harry Buckingham is compelled to defend himself against police allegations that he is responsible for a series of peculiar deaths in London. Among these deaths is that of Buckingham’s own father, who had been hit by a truck; the father’s secretary, who is crushed in an escalator; and the father’s two business partners, one of whom is killed when he drives his automobile into the Thames River after striking several bystanders. Buckingham eventually teams with an unlikely group—including a woman truck driver, an elderly detective, and a nine-year-old computer whiz—to determine the links between these deaths. The group discovers that an evil businessman is using occult forces to realize business monopolization and, eventually, mastery of the entire world. Martin Morse Wooster, reviewing Rune in the Washington Post, proclaimed Fowler “a fine entertainer” and affirmed that the novel “will satisfy the seasoned thriller fan.” Morgan dubbed Rune an “homage to M.R. James.”
In Disturbia, Fowler creates the League of Prometheus, a secret group of wealthy Londoners who rule the city with violence. Revolving around a young man named Vince who must find the answers to ten trivia questions in a single night, the novel is a class-conscious quest story in which Fowler “has cut back on the splashy, visceral stuff but indulged his obsession with London to the full,” according to Suzi Feay in the New Statesman.
Nyctophobia, a haunted-house novel, impressed reviewers with its originality and psychological depth. The story is set in contemporary Spain, where Callie Shaw has just purchased a residence, Hyperion House, with her new husband Mateo Torres. He is in his mid-forties and has a nine-year-old daughter, Bobbie, from his previous marriage; Callie, an aspiring architect, is only twenty-six and yet to establish her career. While Mateo is away on frequent business trips, Callie decides to learn more about the house and to write a book about her discoveries. But she comes up against layers of secrecy that prove difficult to penetrate. There is a mystery about the servants’ quarters, and the property’s housekeeper is not willing to talk honestly with Callie. Before long, Callie begins to see things in the house’s dark rooms. Is this a symptom of her fear of the dark, nyctophobia? Or is Hyperion House actually haunted?
Reviewing the book in Locus, Paul Di Filippo observed that Nyctophobia offers “lots of quiet discomfort without gratuitous splatter or nastiness.” Di Filippo pointed out that the author subverts readers’ expectations by placing a dark-themed story in a sunny setting, and by choosing against a plot based on “bottled-up martial psycho-sexual angst.” Instead, Fowler propels the narrative through what Di Filippo described as “a potent blend” of “solipsism, many-worlds theory, doppelgangers, ghosts, and Alesiter-Crowley-style occultism.”
In the end, Callie finally meets the creatures she has glimpsed in the dark. Though frightened, she also attempts to connect with the specters and help them, and by taking this step she is also beginning the process of healing from her own psychic wounds. “Fowler delivers a useful message couched in thriller guise,” wrote De Filippo. “Only by empathizing with demons can we conquer them and relieve both them and ourselves of our uncertainty and pain.”
Set around Dream World, a fictional resort in Dubai, The Sand Men focuses on English expats who have come to Dubai to help complete construction of the resort, for which they are handsomely paid. Roy, an engineer, has moved from London with wife Lea and teenage daughter Cara. Lea, a journalist, hates the stultifying climate and social conformity of Dubai, and starts to investigate when she hears of strange accidents that have claimed the lives both of poor workers at Dream World and of some of her own wealthy neighbors. Lea’s attempts to find out what is going on are thwarted by some extremely powerful men who want her to stop asking questions. But she is finally able to uncover evidence of a deadly conspiracy among the super-rich who will stop at nothing to maintain their lives of luxury and privilege.
Pointing out the novel’s obvious debt to the work of J.G. Ballard, a reviewer for Crime Fiction Lover observed that though that writer “might have taken a perverse pleasure in the dystopian modernity of Dubai, Fowler fashions an addictive thriller that’s full of murky terror and paranoia as well as a gender divide that resembles the Stepford Wives.” Describing The Sand Men as “clever, chilling and … original, both in its concept and structure,” the reviewer deemed the novel “easily one of the most readable thrillers of 2015.” Financial Times contributor James Lovegrove also admired the book, stating that the author adds “a savage Ballardian tweak” to the subject of planned luxury communities and their hidden darkness. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly described The Sand Men as “a harrowing read” with an “oddly hopeful” conclusion.
Modeled on the time-honored dual-detective model honed by Arthur Conan Doyle and others, Fowler unearths a decades-old crime in Full Dark House, which is his debut novel in a mystery series featuring Arthur Bryant and John May, partners in the London Police Department’s Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU). The story begins in the present, as soon-to-retire Detective May, saddened by the death of his partner, reflects on a case the pair had handled years before, in 1940s London. Soon after they are trained as part of the newly formed PCU, May and Bryant are faced with an unusual serial killer known as the Palace Phantom whose victims encompassed the cast members of a production of Offenbach’s opera Orpheus in the Underworld. Detective May “uses everything from crime-scene forensics to spiritualists” in solving the crime, explained School Library Journal reviewer Susan H. Woodcock, adding that novelist Fowler “skillfully shifts the action between 1940 and the twenty-first century” in building his dual mystery. Calling the novel “darkly atmospheric,” Wilda Williams wrote in Library Journal that war-torn London provides a “dramatic backdrop” for Fowler’s tale. In Booklist, Connie Fletcher praised the novel’s scenes of the London Blitz as “absolutely riveting,” while in Publishers Weekly a contributor noted that in Full Dark House “the potency of Greek myth … is skillfully played out in the detectives’ theories about the killer.”
In Fowler’s second novel in the series, The Water Room, Bryant and May, the “elderly odd couple” as described by a Publishers Weekly contributor are back on the job. This time they are involved in two unofficial investigations. Bryant is approached by a former colleague to investigate the mysterious death of his sister, who was found drowned in her basement, despite the absence of any water on or around her. Bryant enlists the help of May, his partner for over fifty years since the establishment of London’s PCU during World War II. May is also busy unofficially investigating an expert on London’s lost underground rivers, who may be involved in a sinister plot. More strange deaths follow before the murderer is finally revealed. Critics praised the novel’s characters: Joe Hartlaub noted in his review of The Water Room on BookReporter.com that although Fowler did a great job with the story’s plot, it is still “eclipsed by the characterization of the primary and secondary principals within. One comes to really like the people encountered on the pages.” A Booklist contributor praised Bryant and May as two characters who “manage to breathe new life into an established genre in which it’s getting harder and harder to find anything genuinely fresh,” and Hartlaub believed that “the men are polar opposites—hilariously so—and thus work perfectly together.”
The next novel in the series, Seventy-Seven Clocks, brings together a younger Bryant and May. It also details how the pair came to join the PCU. Set in 1973, the duo’s investigation revolves around several bizarre murders that are all connected with a strange group, the Alliance of Eternal Light, and the family who founded it. A Publishers Weekly contributor remarked that fans of the previous two novels in the series are “likely to feel let down by the far-fetched solution,” but that will not take away the “pleasure of a twisty thriller, full of action and plot surprises.”
Fowler’s fourth installment of the “Bryant and May” series, Ten Second Staircase, “delivers a delirious blend of black humor and suspense,” according to Booklist reviewer Allison Block. The two detectives are yet again faced with unraveling a case too peculiar for traditional law enforcement professionals. This one concerns a string of murders of second-rate celebrities of questionable repute perpetrated by a masked highwayman on horseback, according to several witnesses. New York Times Book Review contributor Marilyn Stasio regarded this novel as “a lively example of Fowler’s imaginative approach to what is essentially a traditional whodunit.” “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,” praised Hartlaub on Bookreporter.com. He called Ten Second Staircase “the strongest entry in the series to date.”
White Corridor, the fifth novel in the series, packs two mysteries in one novel. Bryant and May find themselves trapped on a road during a blizzard while on their way to an international spiritualists’ convention. Skulking among the trapped vehicles is a man who could possibly be a multiple murderer. At the same time, via cell phone, they try to help their associates back in London solve a murder before the PCU is shut down once and for all. “Once again, Fowler shows himself to be a master of the ‘impossible crime’ tale,” observed a Publishers Weekly contributor.
Following White Corridor, the series continues with The Victoria Vanishes. Officials are investigating the PCU, so Bryant and May do everything in their power to keep the department running. Throughout the city, middle-aged women are dying in pubs, and while it appears that their deaths are natural, the women are in fact the victims of a crafty serial killer. Bryant even witnesses one of the victims as she walks into the Victoria Cross pub just before her murder. He then discovers that the bar has been closed for nearly one hundred years. “This is a delightfully complex tale with well written prose and an intricate subtext,” Amanda Brown declared in the online Euro Crime. “I enjoyed it immensely, having not come across the Bryant and May team before, and hope that this will not be the last.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor was more ambivalent, stating that “conspiracy theories and the blood of Christ keep the pot boiling, though the answers this time aren’t as satisfying as the wildly inventive questions.” A Publishers Weekly contributor recommended The Victoria Vanishes for “those who appreciate Fowler’s special blend of the macabre, dark humor and impossible crime puzzles.”
In Bryant & May on the Loose, the series heroes are rebuilding their lives now that their beloved PCU has been disbanded. Bryant, however, is having trouble moving on, and he has become a depressed shut-in. May finds a case that he believes might entice Bryant to leave the house and even reestablish the PCU. A decapitated body has been discovered in a freezer, but Bryant is captivated by the strange man who is interfering with the King’s Cross renovation project. Applauding the novel on the Mystery File Web site, Ray O’Leary called it “another very enjoyable adventure of the Peculiar Crimes Unit that manages to blend history, mythology, corporate crime and even the Beatles into the tale.” A Kirkus Reviews writer was also impressed, observing that “the reunion of the PCU is cause for such joy that only the most curmudgeonly fans will quibble.” Stephanie Zvirin, writing in Booklist, noted that “this ensemble crime story has lots to offer.”
The next installment, Bryant & May off the Rails, finds Bryant and May celebrating the capture of Mr. Fox, the “King’s Cross Executioner” known for beheading his victims. But Mr. Fox escapes, killing a police officer in the process. The PCU has been reestablished, but they will once again be disbarred if Bryant and May don’t retrieve Mr. Fox within the week. The detectives begin their search by investigating a series of strange events in the Underground. A drunken engineering student has disappeared from a late-night train, and a single mother has fallen to her death down the stairs. Most reviewers commended Bryant & May off the Rails as a welcome addition to the “Bryant and May” series, pointing out the continued character development and exciting plot. Although Mystery File contributor O’Leary found some fault with the book, he nevertheless remarked: “It does have a pretty good final 50 pages or so and plenty of information about the London Underground system for those interested.” Block, writing once more in Booklist, called the book “clever, comical, and suspenseful,” adding: “This latest installment is great fun from page one.” Lauding the book further in Publishers Weekly, a reviewer commented that “Fowler has few peers when it comes to constructing ingenious and intricate plots.” Pointing out the book’s “engagingly quirky characters, and fascinating tidbits of obscure history” in Library Journal, Williams called Bryant & May off the Rails a fine addition to “one of the most delightful series around.”
Fowler continues the series with Bryant & May and the Memory of Blood, published in the United States as The Memory of Blood: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery, in 2011. In this volume, a most peculiar case lands at Bryant and May’s door—the murder of an infant at a theater cast party. The party was given by theater owner and magnate Robert Kramer, and the victim was his newborn son. Soon other cast members begin turning up dead, and the murders align with the plot of the Punch and Judy puppet show. Bryant and May’s investigation comes to involve everything from petty jealousies to national security.
Booklist contributor Allison Block noted that “Fowler serves up his usual lively blend of intriguing mystery and wicked wit,” and a Publishers Weekly contributor observed that “Fowler makes the most of his odd couple’s personality traits.” “Readers who enjoy Golden Age-style mysteries with a spot of humor and gothic atmosphere shouldn’t miss this,” advised Wilda Williams in Library Journal.
In The Invisible Code, Home Office security supervisor Oskar Kasavian is eager to avoid a scandal as he prepares to lead a major European antiterrorism initiative. He therefore asks Bryant and May to look into the strange behavior of his young Albanian wife, Sabira. Sabira believes that devils are after her, and, far from dismissing her, the sleuths find ties to the sudden death of a young woman, Amy Connor, who was the target of two young children’s witchcraft spells. Sabira’s relationship to a photographer whom someone is trying to kill thickens the plot.
“Mr. Fowler’s small but ardent American following deserves to get much larger,” remarked Janet Maslin in the New York Times Book Review, adding that “ The Invisible Code is a delightful introduction to his work. … The Invisible Code has immense charm, but its plotting will satisfy serious mystery fans, too. … Mr. Fowler creates a fine blend of vivid descriptions …, quick thinking and artful understatement. … But best of all are the two main characters, particularly Bryant, whose fine British stodginess is matched perfectly by the agility of his crime-solving mind.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor had more tempered praise, writing that “Bryant and a covey of diverse experts expatiate informatively on witchcraft, code-breaking and national defense. But there’s less warmth or humor or real mystery than in The Memory of Blood. ” Writing in Library Journal, Dan Forrest was more enthusiastic, commenting: “Fowler continues his series of thoughtful and rollicking mysteries. … Longtime fans will be thrilled and satisfied by this latest offering.” A Publishers Weekly contributor went a step further, stating: “It’s particularly impressive that [Fowler] manages to surpass himself once again.”
The disappearance of a newly buried corpse presents the detectives with a tricky case in Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart. Witnesses insist that they saw the man rising from his own grave days after his supposed death, and this whiff of the supernatural places the incident squarely within the purview of the Peculiar Crimes Unit. At the same times, Bryant and May are also called on to investigate the fact that the Tower of London’s seven resident ravens have gone missing—a circumstance that, according to legend, presages dire consequences for Britain’s future. The detectives’ work is hampered by their office’s move to the City of London, where their new supervisor is far from sympathetic to their unconventional methods. “Fowler has no trouble convincing readers that London is a place where the occult lives on, the dead might rise, and a detective might absently pluck a kitten out of his pocket,” observed Janet Maslin in the New York Times. “Their very credibility puts quaint old Bryant & May in a class of their own.”
In Bryant & May and the Burning Man, London is engulfed in riots after corrupt banker Dexter Cornell, who had cheated customers out of millions, negotiates a golden parachute to sweeten his exit from the firm. As looters and arsonists run amok, a homeless man, Freddie Weeks, is burned to death in the first of a string of increasingly sadistic murders. Bryant and May are called in to help with identification of the first victim, but they quickly find themselves immersed in the case—even as Bryant struggles with a diagnosis of an early form of dementia. A writer for Kirkus Reviews expressed disappointment in the book’s ending, but said that this flaw does not detract from “the most joyously inventive mystery series of our time.” A Publishers Weekly contributor made a similar point, admiring the author’s ability to make readers care about his “squad of misfits” despite the relative weakness of the storyline.
Bryant’s cognitive problems continue as he and his partner investigate a bizarre murder in Strange Tide. The body of a young woman has been found chained to a concrete block along a seedy section of the Thames River. She had drowned; she was seven months pregnant; and her wastrel boyfriend neither impregnated nor killed her. David Prestidge, writing in Crime Fiction Lover, enjoyed Fowler’s skill in weaving the story of Ali, the sole survivor among Libyan migrants hoping to reach Europe by boat, into the narrative. The reviewer also admired the book’s distinctive humor. But the deepest pleasure in the book, for Prestidge, is Fowler’s “unique take on London itself.” The real star of Strange Tide, wrote Prestidge, “is the River Thames itself. The crime is eventually solved, Arthur’s malaise is mostly cured, but the powerful river remains the city’s lifeblood.”
Wild Chamber: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery revolves around the murder of Helen Foster, a PR executive who is found strangled in a private garden on the street and where she takes her West Highland terrier for a walk each morning. The garden’s gardener, Ritchie Jackson, was there at the time of the murder but saw nothing. Meanwhile, there is no trace of the dog. As Bryant and May investigate, they ponder if a connection exists between Foster’s murder and the death of her seven-year-old son, Charlie, who died when a piece of glass in his eye resulted in a blood clot. Soon a second woman is murdered in a public park in a similar fashion. Meanwhile, as Bryant and May look for the killer, Leslie Farady, who is responsible for the police budget, is scheming to turn all of London’s green spaces into private property and, in the process, finally make an end to the Peculiar Crimes Unit. “Fowler brilliantly mixes humor into a fair-play whodunit with an unexpected solution,” noted a Publishers Weekly contributor.
In Bryant and May: Hall of Mirrors, Fowler takes readers back to 1969 featuring a younger Bryant and May. It is a time of great change, but Bryant is not a fan of the “Swinging Sixties” with its mod culture. May, on the other hand, accepts the new cultural developments. However, after accidentally sinking a barge painted like the Yellow Submarine from the Beatles song, the duo finds themselves banned from the Peculiar Crimes Unit. Instead, Bryand and May are assigned to protect Monty Hatton-Jones until the star witness for the prosecution has to appear in the trial of a developer who is accused of building shoddy prefabs home that sometimes collapse. Although they only have to protect Hatton-Jones for one weekend, their charge insisted on going to a party at the Tavistock Hall estate. When bad weather and army maneuvers isolate the people at Tavistock hall, Bryant and May soon are investigating a murder.
“The inspired idea of revisiting the youth of his aged sleuths in swinging England is matched by Fowler’s customary gusto in sweating the details,” wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor. Michele Leber, writing in Booklist, praised “the narrative veering between laugh-out-loud funny to macabre.”
Fowler returns to the present day in The Lonely Hour. Bryant and May are on the trail of murderer, Hugo Blake. The killer employs a trocar, which is used by surgeons to drain fluids from the body, to stab his victims in the neck. Dhruv Cheema, Blake’s first victim, is found hanging upside down from a willow tree in a heath and surrounded by objects identified as common things used in satanic rituals. These objects lead to the Peculiar Crimes Unit being called in to investigate. When a second body is pulled from the Thames and found to be murdered the same way as Cheema, Bryant and May begin working the night shift in hopes of catching the murderer. The two detectives, however, are at odds about how to catch the killer as they become even more aware of the seamy side of London.
“This whydunit is the epitome of an intelligent page-turner,” wrote a reviewer for Publishers Weekly. A Kirkus Reviews contributor noted: “The crime spree is relatively straightforward, but the devil is in the details, and Fowler’s details are hilariously devilish.”
In The Book of Forgotten Authors, Fowler pays homage to authors he admires but have largely been forgotten by the general public. Fowler discusses ninety-nine once-famous authors whose books have been difficult to find. He examines both their works and their lives, including why some of them quit writing or why their works became little known. Featuring one hundred short articles and twelve essays, The Book of Forgotten Authors is broken up into twelve sections with intervening chapters covering a wide range of issues, from why some good authors have been forgotten to writers who, in Fowler’s estimation, deserve to be forgotten. Although many of the authors disappeared into obscurity, Fowler also discusses some forgotten books by authors who have remained well known, such as Charles Dickens.
The Book of Forgotten Authors “is for book lovers, and is written by one who could not be a more enthusiastic, enlightening and entertaining guide,” wrote a contributor to the Whispering Stories website. Calling the book “quirky,” a Publishers Weekly contributor wrote: “Readers interested in exploring out-of-print fiction and other literary curiosities will find this to be a valuable and entertaining guide.”
Fowler is also the author of several story collections, such as The Bureau of Lost Souls, which is summarized by Fowler in his introduction to the work as a collection of tales about “urban paranoia.” Here a woman grows increasingly suspicious of her fireplace, a package deliverer falls captive to a gruesome creature, men hunt tourists in London’s Leicester Square, and an obnoxious child is abducted while vacationing. “It would be a strange reader,” contended Times Literary Supplement contributor Phil Baker, “who wanted [the child] … returned in one piece after his kidnap by terrorists.” Summarizing the tales collected in The Bureau of Lost Souls, Baker added that “they vary in tone, as pathos and horror share the book with black comedy and galumphing satire.”
Also discussing Fowler’s short fiction, Morgan found that, “as in the novels, the deaths in the stories are largely gory, sometimes predictable and sometimes more shocking because they are sudden. The longer stories are more satisfying because Fowler is able to develop the characters and situations, and later stories are better as he has become more skillful at handling his material.”
Fowler once told CA: “I am a hybrid writer, mixing horror, fantasy, and science fiction with realistic settings in modern-day cities. My work is urban, violent, slightly paranoid, usually sprinkled with black humor. My characters include punks, crooks, yuppies, scientists, mediums, senior citizens, and police officers. Several of them recur in each other’s tales. Each novel shares a character here or there. Each book reads as a separate entity but works to build an alternative London, a city that might have been.
“London figures largely as a backdrop for the action of the forty or so short stories I have so far had published, and it frequently acts as a catalyst for supernatural events. I plan to continue exploring the past, present, and future lives of this fascinating city, populating it with characters real enough to exist yet sufficiently steeped in the fantastic to be able to reveal new shadows within its ancient buildings.”
Fowler later commented that, through fiction, “I try to show that there’s light in the darkest situations. I use stylization to reflect real concerns about modern urban life, in an entertaining, accessible format. Influences include William Faulkner, Ray Bradbury, Charles Dickens, E.M. Forster, H.H. Munro, J.G. Ballard, B.J. Johnson, and Tennessee Williams.
“I was inspired in my subject matter by the feeling that few novelists were exploring fiction through contemporary working white-collar urbanites. Cities have as many myths and fables and heroic adventures as classical landscapes, but their stories are rarely told. Still, I don’t overanalyze. Writing is a discipline for me, so I rarely plan away from my desk. I never write more than a dozen pages a day. Lately I have been exploring crime fiction from a new angle, tempering bizarre plots with humor and serious themes.”
BIOCRIT
BOOKS
St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost, and Gothic Writers, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1998.
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 1, 2004, Connie Fletcher, review of Full Dark House, p. 1506; May 1, 2005, David Pitt, review of The Water Room, p. 1522; May 1, 2006, Allison Block, review of Ten Second Staircase, p. 24; December 1, 2009, Stephanie Zvirin, review of Bryant & May on the Loose, p. 27; September 1, 2010, Allison Block, review of Bryant & May off the Rails, p. 47; March 1, 2012, Allison Block, review of The Memory of Blood: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery, p. 49; September 15, 2015, Don Crinklaw, review of The Sand Men, p. 34; October 15, 2018, Michele Leber, review of Byant & May: Hall of Mirrors, p. 23.
BookPage, December, 2014, Michel Alec Rose, review of Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart, p. 41.
Financial Times, October 30, 2015, James Lovegrove, review of The Sandmen.
Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 2005, review of The Water Room, p. 612; May 15, 2006, review of Ten Second Staircase, p. 497; September 1, 2008, review of The Victoria Vanishes; November 1, 2009, review of Bryant & May on the Loose; December 15, 2013, review of The Invisible Code; November 1, 2014, review of Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart; October 1, 2015, review of Bryant & May and the Burning Man; September 15, 2018, review of Hall of Mirrors; September 15, 2019, review of Bryant & May: The Lonely Hour.
Library Journal, June 1, 2004, Wilda Williams, review of Full Dark House, p. 108; June 15, 2010, Wilda Williams, review of Bryant & May off the Rails, p. 3; September 1, 2010, “Mystery,” p. 94; January 1, 2012, Wilda Williams, review of The Memory of Blood, p. 77; November 15, 2013, Dan Forrest, review of The Invisible Code, p. 88; November 15, 2015, Dan Forrest, review of Bryant & May and the Burning Man, p. 80.
New Statesman, October 3, 1997, Suzi Feay, review of Disturbia, p. 45.
New York Times, November 27, 2014, Janet Maslin, “So Is It a Murder, If the Corpse Is Undead?,” review of Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart.
New York Times Book Review, June 25, 2006, review of Ten Second Staircase, p. 26; December 18, 2013, Janet Maslin, review of The Invisible Code.
Publishers Weekly, January 21, 2002, review of The Devil in Me, p. 69; May 3, 2004, review of Full Dark House, p. 175; May 23, 2005, review of The Water Room, p. 62; September 19, 2005, review of Seventy-Seven Clocks, p. 49; May 8, 2006, review of Ten Second Staircase, p. 49; April 23, 2007, review of White Corridor, p. 33; June 30, 2008, review of Old Devil Moon, p. 162; August 25, 2008, review of The Victoria Vanishes, p. 54; August 2, 2010, review of Bryant & May off the Rails, p. 32; October 31, 2011, review of Hell Train, p. 40; February 20, 2012, review of The Memory of Blood, p. 149; October 7, 2013, review of The Invisible Code, p. 30; October 6, 2014, review of Bryant & May and the Bleeding Heart, p. 45; September 21, 2015, review of Bryant & May and the Burning Man, p. 52; February 15, 2016, review of The Sand Men; October 23, 2017, review of Wild Chamber: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery; July 15, 2019, review of The Book of Forgotten Authors; September 16, 2019, review of The Lonely Hour.
Reviewer’s Bookwatch, January, 2016, Jack Mason, review of Bryant & May and the Burning Man.
School Library Journal, October, 2004, Susan H. Woodcock, review of Full Dark House, p. 198.
Telegraph (London, England), April 26, 2013, Tim Robey, review of Film Freak.
Times Literary Supplement, December 29, 1989, Phil Baker, review of The Bureau of Lost Souls, p. 1448.
Washington Post, February 26, 1991, Martin Morse Wooster, review of Rune, p. B3.
Xpress Reviews, October 19, 2018, Wilda Williams, review of Hall of Mirrors.
ONLINE
Bookbag, http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/(September 26, 2016), Lesley Mason, review of Strange Tide.
Bookreporter.com, http://www.bookreporter.com/ (June 4, 2004), Joe Hartlaub and Wiley Saichek, interview with author; (June 25, 2007), Joe Hartlaub, reviews of The Water Room and Ten Second Staircase.
Christopher Fowler, http://www.christopherfowler.co.uk (October 18, 2019).
Crime Fiction Lover, http://www.crimefictionlover.com/ (March 27, 2015), Keith Nixon, review of Bryant & May and the Burning Man; (October 12, 2015), Andre, review of The Sand Men; (March 24, 2016), David Prestidge, review of Strange Tide.
Eloquent Page, http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/ (September 26, 2016), review of The Sand Men.
Euro Crime, http://www.eurocrime.co.uk/ (May 9, 2011), Amanda Brown, review of The Victoria Vanishes; (September 26, 2016), Mark Bailey, review of Bryant & May and the Burning Man.
Flickering Myth, http://wwwlflickeringmyth.com/ (December 3, 2014), Michelle Herbert, review of Nyctophobia.
Food for Bookworms, http://www.foodforbookworms.com/ (September 26, 2016), “Bryant & May and the Burning Man: Q&A with Christopher Fowler.”
Fruitless Pursuits, http://fruitlesspursuits.com/ (October 6, 2014), Jeff Raymond, review of Nyctophobia.
Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com/ (June 25, 2007), “Christopher Fowler.”
Locus, http://www.locusmag.com/ (October 19, 2014), Paul Di Filippo, review of Nyctophobia.
Mysterious Reviews, http://www.mysteriousreviews.com/ (September 26, 2016), review of Bryant & May and the Burning Man.
Mystery File, http://mysteryfile.com/ (April 13, 2010), Ray O’Leary, review of Bryant & May on the Loose; (January 21, 2011), Ray O’Leary, review of Bryant & May off the Rails.
Lit Bitch, https://thelitbitch.com/ (December 17, 2018), review of Hall of Mirrors.
Portland Book Review, http://portlandbookreview.com/ (January 8, 2015), review of Nyctophobia.
Random Readheaded Ramblings, http://redheatherduff.blogspot.com/ (June 6, 2016), review of Strange Tide.
SF Site, http://www.sfsite.com/ (June 25, 2007), David Mathew, “London in the Blood: An Interview with Christopher Fowler.”
Starburst, http://www.starburstmagazine.com/ (September 26, 2016), Ed Fortune, review of The Sand Men.
Whispering Stories, https://whisperingstories.com/ (November 6, 2017), review of The Book of Forgotten Authors.
Biography
About Me
Christopher Fowler is the award-winning author of many novels and short story collections, and the Bryant & May mystery novels, which record the adventures of two Golden Age detectives investigating impossible London crimes.
His latest books are ‘The Book of Forgotten Authors’ and the Bryant & May novel ‘Hall of Mirrors’.
Christopher was born in Greenwich, London. He attended Colfes, the Royal Leathersellers Guild School, and after joined J Walter Thompson as a copywriter. At the age of 26 he founded The Creative Partnership, a company that changed the face of UK and international film marketing, and spent many years working in film, creating movie posters, trailers and documentaries.
A self-confessed movie-obsessive, he handled films like ‘Reservoir Dogs’, ‘Trainspotting’, ‘Goldeneye’, ‘Moulin Rouge’ and ’28 Weeks Later’. He worked with directors like Mike Leigh, Martin Campbell and Peter Greenaway, and on countless Hollywood blockbusters. He has written for everyone from Kenneth Williams to Michael Caine, the Spice Girls, Pierce Brosnan, Leslie Nielsen, Julie Walters, John Cleese and Eric Idle. He has written comedy and drama for the BBC, including Radio One’s first live broadcast drama in 2005.
He is a five-time British Fantasy Award-winner. His first thriller was the bestseller ‘Roofworld’. Subsequent novels include ‘innky’, ‘Disturbia’, ‘Psychoville’ and ‘Calabash’. His books have been optioned by everyone from Guillermo Del Toro (‘Spanky’) to Jude Law (‘Psychoville’).
His graphic novel for DC Comics was the critically acclaimed ‘Menz Insana’. His short story ‘The Master Builder’ became a feature film entitled ‘Through The Eyes Of A Killer’, starring Tippi Hedren and Marg Helgenberger. His filmed short stories include: ‘Left Hand Drive’, ‘On Edge’, ‘Perfect Casting’, ‘The Most Boring Woman In The World’ and ‘Rainy Day Boys’.
In 2010 he wrote and produced the fringe play ‘Celebrity’ at the Phoenix, London. In 2011 he created the ‘War Of The Worlds’ videogame for Paramount, starring Sir Patrick Stewart. He has written for The Times, the Financial Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Daily Mail, Time Out, Smoke, Big Issue, i-D magazine and many others.
He has been nominated for many national book awards and is the winner of the Edge Hill prize for ‘Old Devil Moon’, the Last Laugh prize (twice) for ‘The Victoria Vanishes’ and ‘The Burning Man’, the Green Carnation Award for ‘Paperboy’, the E-Dunnit Award for ‘Bryant & May and the Invisible Code’ and the CWA 2015 Dagger In The Library for his body of work.
Christopher has achieved several pathetic schoolboy fantasies, releasing a really horrible Christmas pop single, working as a male model, writing two London stage shows, posing as the villain in a Batman graphic novel ‘Man-Bat’, running a Soho night club, appearing in the Pan Books of Horror, and standing in for James Bond. After living in France and the USA he now lives in King’s Cross, London and Barcelona.
His short stories have appeared in Best British Mysteries, The Time Out Book Of London Stories, The New English Book Of Internet Stories, Dark Terrors, London Noir, Neon Lit, Cinema Macabre, Inferno, Gutshot, Dead Letters, Zombie Apocalypse 1 & 2 and many others. His award-winning memoirs ‘Paperboy’ and ‘Film Freak’ have been published to critical acclaim.
‘Christopher Fowler is an award-winning novelist who would make a good serial killer. He’s charming and English and lives in a glass box with a view of St Paul’s Cathedral, and you’d think butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth until you read his outrageously dark urban fiction. He has written over thirty books, mainly comprising novels and volumes of short stories. His work divides into black comedy, horror, satire, mystery and a set of tales unclassifiable enough to have publishers tearing their hair out.’ – Time Out
FAQ
Which writers do you most admire?
A random Top Twenty would feature Charles Dickens, J.G. Ballard, Ray Bradbury, William Faulkner, HH Munroe, EM Forster, Ira Levin, Virginia Woolf, Joyce Carol Oates, BS Johnson, Joe Haldeman, Peter Barnes, Alan Sillitoe, Keith Waterhouse, Tennessee Williams, David Nobbs, Evelyn Waugh, Joe Orton, Alan Bennett and Christopher Hibbert.
Do you still write horror stories?
You tell me. The most upsetting story I ever wrote was ‘Personal Space’, about a pensioner being imprisoned in her own home by drug addicts, but the idea came from a newspaper article with a far more horrific outcome than the one I provided.
Im certainly no fan of kitchen sink drama I like stories that soar into strangeness rather than ones that faithfully replicate the ordinariness of life.
What do you like and dislike about genre writing?
I love the stomach-drop you get from truly emotional books and films, but they need an intelligence behind them to provide a kick. I hated the porno-dumb violence of Kill Bill and Sin City, films aimed at 14 year-olds discovering erections, and I abhor the misanthropic streak of much post-modernist writing, but I love stories that create fatally flawed humans. I dont appreciate the ghettoisation of the genre, and many of the stories I consider to be horrific do not fit into easy horror categories. I think horror, like SF, has passed through its experimental golden period, and dont enjoy ‘comfortable mainstream horror fiction aimed at Goth girls and populated by vampires in black leather coats. This creates a problem for me, because I drift across the genre into other areas, and it confuses readers looking for a consistent backlist.
Whats your most biographical book?
Psychoville is the most overtly biographical (to the point where my parents took offense), but elements of my life are present in ‘Soho Black, which was written as catharsis, and ‘Calabash.
My biggest problem arises in the choice of subject matter, and how to balance real life with grand guignol. Im planning to write a much more biographical book one day.
Why do you often write stories in pairs or trios?
A number of readers and critics have mentioned this. Its to do with not getting all your ideas into one story, and being drawn to particular styles that are worth exploring further.
So you get bleak fairytales like the Britannica Castle stories, and exotica like ‘The Scorpion Jacket and ‘The Man Who Wound A Thousand Clocks, and dark comedies like ‘Looking For Bolivar and ‘Something For Your Monkey.
If you look for recurrent themes in my fiction youll find pairs and opposites, usually two characters complementing or cancelling each others personalities. This stems from my habit of creating warring forces within single characters and them splitting them into duos.
Whats your advice for first time writers?
Fiction means you can make stuff up.
Dont be ashamed of embarrassing yourself.
Romances need a moral dilemma.
Remember its fiction, not biography.
Ask yourself what the hero wants.
Think the unthinkable.
When you think it cant go further, go further.
Characters need to grow, and not repeat themselves.
Choice is a dilemma between irreconcilable goods or the lesser of two evils.
You dont always need to explain why people do things.
Crisis moments are better when theyre completely static.
Leave room for characters to breathe.
You have to love your hero.
Dialogue is not conversation.
Its better to do than to describe.
Believe what you write.
You dont have to write from experience.
Make sure that something always remains unknowable.
Would you like to see more film versions of your stories?
Of course. Who wouldnt want to see their work completely misunderstood and then circumcised by a Hollywood director with strange hair, a really high voice and a worldview based around himself?
Is writing hard work?
Writing can be an act of bravery. Many authors hide far behind the patina of the page, but for me writing requires a degree of honesty and the voicing of an opinion. Obviously, this places you at risk and potentially reduces your audience, although it never hurt any of the authors Ive listed as an influence.
Readers are intuitive; any of mine looking for a roman a clef should be able to spot that Im an urban democrat who believes in change and optimism and embracing difference, and has no interest in the Little-Middle-England mentality. That doesnt stop me from loving London and writing about the English with pride; you can keep Offenbach next to Rufus Wainwright on your playlist without conflict.
And it means you can write about fear without spreading it, even though the Daily Mail will hate you forever.
LK Fox
A pseudonym used by Christopher Fowler
Little Boy Found is the first psychological thriller from LK Fox, a bestselling novelist and short story writer. Fox also writes fiction and non-fiction under other names, and lives in central London.
Genres: Mystery
Novels
Little Boy Found (2017)
Christopher Fowler
(b.1953)
aka Chris Fowler, LK Fox
Christopher Fowler was born in Greenwich, London. He is the multi award-winning author of many novels and short story collections, and the author of the Bryant & May mysteries. His first bestseller was 'Roofworld'. Subsequent novels include 'Spanky', 'Disturbia', 'Psychoville' and 'Calabash'. He spent 25 years working in the film industry.
His collection 'Red Gloves', 25 new stories of unease, marked his first 25 years of writing. His memoir 'Paperboy' won the Green Carnation Award, and was followed by a 2nd volume, 'Film Freak'. Other new novels include the dark comedy-thriller 'Plastic' and the haunted house chiller 'Nyctophobia'.
He has written comedy and drama for BBC radio, including Radio One's first broadcast drama in 2005. He has a weekly column called 'Invisible Ink' in the Independent on Sunday. His graphic novel for DC Comics was the critically acclaimed 'Menz Insana'. His short story 'The Master Builder' became a feature film entitled 'Through The Eyes Of A Killer', starring Tippi Hedren and Marg Helgenberger. Among his awards are the Edge Hill prize 2008 for 'Old Devil Moon', and the Last Laugh prize 2009 for 'The Victoria Vanishes'.
Christopher has achieved several pathetic 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.
His short stories have appeared in Best British Mysteries, The Time Out Book Of London Short Stories, The Best Of Dark Terrors, London Noir, Neon Lit, Cinema Macabre, the Mammoth Book of Horror and many others. After living in the USA and France he is now married and lives in London's King's Cross and Barcelona.
Genres: Mystery, Horror, Young Adult Fantasy
New Books
October 2019
(hardback)
England's Finest
(Bryant & May, book 18)
March 2020
(paperback)
The Lonely Hour
(Bryant & May, book 17)
June 2020
(hardback)
Oranges and Lemons
(Bryant & May, book 19)
Series
Bryant & May
1. Full Dark House (2003)
2. The Water Room (2004)
3. Seventy-Seven Clocks (2005)
4. Ten Second Staircase (2006)
5. White Corridor (2007)
6. The Victoria Vanishes (2008)
7. On the Loose (2009)
7.5. Bryant & May's Mystery Tour (2011)
8. Off the Rails (2010)
9. The Memory of Blood (2011)
10. The Invisible Code (2012)
11. The Bleeding Heart (2012)
11.5. Bryant & May and the Secret Santa (2015)
12. The Burning Man (2015)
13. London's Glory (2015)
14. Strange Tide (2016)
15. Wild Chamber (2017)
16. Hall of Mirrors (2018)
17. The Lonely Hour (2019)
18. England's Finest (2019)
19. Oranges and Lemons (2020)
The Casebook of Bryant May: The Soho Devil (2013)
Novels
Roofworld (1988)
Rune (1990)
Red Bride (1992)
Darkest Day (1993)
Spanky (1994)
Psychoville (1995)
Disturbia (1997)
Menz Insana (1997)
Soho Black (1998)
Calabash (2000)
Plastic (2003)
Breathe (2004)
Hell Train (2011)
Nyctophobia (2014)
The Sand Men (2015)
Hellion: The Curse of Snakes (2016)
Collections
The Bureau of Lost Souls (1984)
City Jitters (1986)
More City Jitters (1988)
Flesh Wounds (1989)
Sharper Knives (1992)
Personal Demons (1998)
Uncut (1999)
The Devil in Me (2001)
Demonized (2004)
Old Devil Moon (2007)
Crimewave 11: Ghosts (2010) (with Nina Allan, Ilsa J Bick, Richard Butner, Cody Goodfellow, Dave Hoing, Alison J Littlewood, O'Neil De Noux and Luke Sholer)
Demonic Dreams (2012) (with Norman Partridge and Robert Shearman)
Frightening (2017)
Red Gloves (2017)
Red Gloves, Volumes I & II (2017)
Novellas
Perfect Casting (1994)
Oh I Do Like To Be Beside the Seaside (2012)
#ChooseThePlot (2014) (with Jane Casey and James Oswald)
Series contributed to
Bibliomysteries
30. Reconciliation Day (2017)
Fantastic Crimes (omnibus) (2018) (with Elizabeth George, Anne Perry and F Paul Wilson)
Non fiction
Paperboy (2009)
Invisible Ink (2012)
Film Freak (2013)
The Book of Forgotten Authors (2017)
Anthologies containing stories by Christopher Fowler
Dark Voices 4 (1992)
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror Sixth Annual Collection (1993)
Best New Horror 4 (1993)
Tombs (1994)
The Giant Book of Terror (1994)
The Best New Horror 5 (1995)
Dark Terrors (1995)
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Volume Seven (1996)
Destination Unknown (1996)
Lethal Kisses (1996)
The Mammoth Book of Dracula (1997)
Dark of the Night (1997)
Dark Terrors 3 (1997)
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Volume Nine (1997)
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Volume Eight (1997)
Love in Vein II (1997)
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror Eleventh Annual Collection (1998)
Scaremongers 2 (1998)
Dark Terrors 4 (1998)
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Volume Ten (1999)
Dark Terrors 5 (2000)
Short stories
The Art Nouveau Fireplace (1989)
Box (1989)
The Bureau of Lost Souls [short story] (1989)
Deceiving the Lizards (1989)
Hot Air (1989)
Jumbo Portions (1989)
The Ladies' Man (1989)
Lost in Leicester Square (1989)
The Master Builder (1989)
Safe as Houses (1989)
Shadow Play (1989)
The Sun in the Sands (1989)
Evil Eye (1992)
Norman Wisdom and the Angel of Death (1992)
On Edge (1992)
Mother of the City (1993)
Night After Night of the Living Dead (1993)
The Laundry Imp (1994)
Brian Foot's Blaze of Glory (1995)
Century and a Second (1995)
Ginansia's Ravishment (1995)
Hated (1995)
Jouissance de la Mort (1995)
The Most Boring Woman in the World (1995)
Tales of Britannica Castle: I. Ginansia's Punishment (1995)
Tales of Britannica Castle: II. Leperdandy's Revenge (1995)
Unreliable History of Plaster City (1995)
The Young Executives (1995)
Armies of the Heart (1996)
Permanent Fixture (1996)
Unforgotten (1996)
Christmas Forever (1997)
Dracula's Library (1997)
The Grand Finale Hotel (1997)
Looking for Bolivar (1997)
The Man Who Wound a Thousand Clocks (1997)
Spanky's Back in Town (1997)
Wage Slaves (1997)
The Cages (1998)
Five Star (1998)
Inner Fire (1998)
Learning to Let Go (1998)
Midas Touch (1998)
Normal Life (1998)
Phoenix (1998)
Scratch (1998)
Still Life (1998)
At Home in the Pubs of Old London (2000)
The Beacon (2000)
Christopher Fowler
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For other people named Christopher Fowler, see Christopher Fowler (disambiguation).
Christopher Fowler
Born
Christopher Fowler
26 March 1953 (age 66)
Greenwich, London
Occupation
Novelist
Nationality
British
Period
1984–present
Genre
Thriller
Notable works
Bryant & May Mysteries
Website
www.christopherfowler.co.uk
Christopher Fowler (born 26 March 1953) is an English thriller writer. While working in the British film industry he became the award-winning author of fifty novels and short-story collections, including the Bryant & May mysteries, which record the adventures of two Golden Age detectives in modern-day London. His awards include the 2015 CWA Dagger In The Library, The Last Laugh Award and the British Fantasy Award (multiple times), the Edge Hill Prize and the inaugural Green Carnation Award. His other works include screenplays, video games, graphic novels, audio and stage plays. He was born in Greenwich, London. He lives in Barcelona and King's Cross, London.[1].
Contents
1
Bryant and May Mysteries
2
Other novels and short stories
3
Novels and collections
4
Forgotten Authors series
5
See also
6
References
7
External links
Bryant and May Mysteries[edit]
Fowler is the author of the Bryant and May mysteries, in which the two detectives, Arthur Bryant and John May, are members of the fictional Peculiar Crimes Unit, based on a unit his father worked in during World War II. The series is also available in audiobook format, narrated by Tim Goodman. Bryant and May, as well as other characters from this series, also appear in Fowler's Rune, Darkest Day, and Soho Black, although these books are not considered part of the series.
The Bryant and May series is set primarily in London, with stories taking place in various years between World War II and the present. While there is a progressive narrative, each of the cases stand alone as separate stories. The exceptions are: Full Dark House, an origin story which focuses on John May's reminiscence of the team's first case together during the Blitz, Seventy Seven Clocks, framed as Arthur Bryant's retelling of a case from 1973, and On The Loose and Off The Rails, which continue characters and events across two books. 'Hall of Mirrors' is set in 1968. There are two volumes of missing cases, 'London's Glory' and 'England's Finest'.
Fowler weaves many factual layers of London's history and society throughout the series. Most of the locations are recognisable London landmarks such as St Paul's Cathedral, the Tate Gallery and various theatres. A major feature of The Water Room is the networks of tunnels and underground rivers underneath the city.
There are many references to other literary works throughout the series. Seventy-Seven Clocks contains references to Gilbert and Sullivan throughout the narrative, while The Victoria Vanishes has similarities with The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin. Although the books appear to have bizarre, uncanny elements, they are not in any way supernatural.
Other novels and short stories[edit]
His book Rune is an update to a modern setting of the M. R. James story Casting the Runes. It also features Bryant, May, and several characters from that series.
His story "The Master Builder" was filmed as Through the Eyes of a Killer,[2] starring Richard Dean Anderson, Marg Helgenberger and Tippi Hedren. His tenth short story collection, Old Devil Moon, won the Edge Hill Audience Prize 2008. His short story 'Left Hand Drive' was made into a film that won Best British Short. His stories 'On Edge' and 'The Most Boring Woman In The World' were both filmed. His novella Breathe won the British Fantasy Society Award for best novella in 2005.[3]
Put into different temporal settings, some elements of his original 2008 story “Arkangel” from Exotic Gothic 2[4] reappear in his 2012 frame-novel Hell Train (a book called “must read now!” by SciFiNow[5]), including the Polish town of Chelmsk, and the physical descriptions of its white gold-rivetted damnation train Arkangel, and the town’s yokels.[6]
His memoir of a lonely 1960s childhood, Paperboy, won the inaugural Green Carnation prize, which celebrates fiction and memoirs written by gay men.[7] A sequel, 'Film Freak', charted his travels through the British film industry. His collection ‘Red Gloves’ consisted of 25 new stories marking a quarter-century in print, two graphic novels and a Hammer horror radio play. He also wrote a Sherlock Holmes audio drama for BBC 7 entitled The Lady Downstairs and the War Of The Worlds videogame with Sir Patrick Stewart, for Paramount. He is currently at work on a new thriller and a complete collection of his short stories from 1985 to the present.
Further works include: Nyctophobia (2014) Solaris Books ISBN 978-1781082102 A haunted house novel set in bright daylight about a woman who is terrified of the dark.
The Casebook of Bryant & May, a graphic novel illustrated by Keith Page.
'Mens Insana', a graphic novel illustrated by John Bolton.
Novels and collections[edit]
How to Impersonate Famous People
1984
ISBN 0-7043-3463-1
The Ultimate Party Book
1985
ISBN 0-04-793087-X
City Jitters
1986
ISBN 0-7221-3704-4
More City Jitters
1988
ISBN 0-4402-0146-2
Roofworld
1988
ISBN 0-7126-2421-X
The Bureau of Lost Souls (US: More City Jitters)
1989
ISBN 0-7126-2459-7
Rune
1990
ISBN 0-7126-3466-5
Red Bride
1992
ISBN 0-356-20805-2
Sharper Knives
1992
ISBN 0-7515-0152-2
Darkest Day
1993
ISBN 0-316-90534-8
Spanky
1994
ISBN 0-7515-0959-0
Flesh Wounds
1995
ISBN 0-7515-1431-4
Psychoville
1995
ISBN 0-7515-1664-3
Menz Insana (graphic novel)
1997
ISBN 1-56389-300-2
Disturbia
1997
ISBN 0-7515-1910-3
Soho Black
1998
ISBN 0-7515-2559-6
Personal Demons
1998
ISBN 1-85242-597-0
Uncut
1999
ISBN 0-7515-2644-4
Calabash
2000
ISBN 0-7515-3040-9
The Devil in Me
2004
ISBN 1-85242-768-X
Demonized
2004
ISBN 1-85242-848-1
Full Dark House
B&M 1
2004
ISBN 0-553-81552-0
Breathe
2004
ISBN 1-903889-67-7
The Water Room
B&M 2
2004
ISBN 0-385-60554-4
Seventy-Seven Clocks
B&M 3
2005
ISBN 0-385-60885-3
Ten Second Staircase
B&M 4
2006
ISBN 0-385-60886-1
Old Devil Moon
2007
ISBN 978-1-85242-925-6
White Corridor
B&M 5
2007
ISBN 978-0-385-61067-4
The Victoria Vanishes
B&M 6
2008
ISBN 978-0-385-61068-1
Paperboy (autobiography)
2009
ISBN 978-0-385-61557-0
Bryant & May On The Loose[8]
B&M 7
2009
ISBN 978-0-385-61465-8
Bryant & May Off the Rails[9]
B&M 8
2010
ISBN 978-0-553-80720-2
Bryant and May and the Memory of Blood
B&M 9
2011
ISBN 978-0-85752-049-4
Hell Train
2012
ISBN 978-1-907992-44-5
Bryant & May: The Invisible Code
B&M 10
2012
ISBN 978-0857520500
Film Freak (autobiography)
2013
ISBN 978-0857521606
The Casebook of Bryant and May (graphic novel)
2013
ISBN 978-1848634565
Plastic
2013
ISBN 978-1781081242
Bryant & May: The Bleeding Heart
B&M 11
2014
ISBN 978-0345547651
Bryant and May and the Secret Santa (single short story)
B&M 11.5
2015
ISBN 978-1101968970
Bryant & May and the Burning Man
B&M 12
2015
ISBN 978-0345547682
The Sand Men
2015
ISBN 978-1781083741
Bryant & May: London's Glory (short stories)
B&M 13
2016
ISBN 978-0857523457
Bryant & May: Strange Tide
B&M 14
2016
ISBN 978-1101887035
Bryant & May: Wild Chamber
B&M 15
2017
ISBN 978-0857523433
Bryant & May: Hall of Mirrors
B&M 16
2018
ISBN 978-0857523440
Bryant & May: The Lonely Hour
B&M 17
2019
ISBN 978-08575-2568-0
Forgotten Authors series[edit]
Fowler wrote a periodic column for The Independent titled "Invisible Ink". In this series, he looked at a wide range of writers whose works, once popular, have now fallen out of the public eye. His book version, The Book of Forgotten Authors, is published by Quercus.[10]
Christopher Fowler was born in Greenwich, London. He is the multi award-winning author of over thirty novels and thirteen short story collections, and the author of the Bryant & May mystery novels. His first bestseller was 'Roofworld'. Subsequent novels include 'Spanky', 'Disturbia', 'Psychoville' and 'Calabash'. His books have been optioned by Guillermo Del Toro ('Spanky') and Jude Law ('Psychoville').
He spent many years working in film. His memoir of growing up without books, entitled 'Paperboy', was highly acclaimed, and was followed by a sequel in April 2013, 'Film Freak'. After this came his dark comedy-thrillers 'Hell Train' and 'Plastic', the haunted house thriller 'Nyctophobia' and his homage to JG Ballard, 'The Sand Men', in 2015. This year he was the recipient of the Crime Writers' Association Dagger In The Library Award.
He has written comedy and drama for BBC radio, including Sherlock Holmes stories and Radio One's first broadcast drama in 2005. He has a weekly column in the UK's national newspaper The Independent on Sunday. His graphic novel for DC Comics was the critically acclaimed 'Menz Insana'. His short story 'The Master Builder' became a feature film entitled 'Through The Eyes Of A Killer', starring Tippi Hedren and Marg Helgenberger. He was the winner of the Edge Hill prize 2008 for 'Old Devil Moon', and the Last Laugh prize 2009 for 'The Victoria Vanishes', and the author of the play 'Celebrity'. He also wrote the 'War Of The Worlds' videogame for Paramount with Sir Patrick Stewart.
Christopher has achieved several pathetic schoolboy fantasies, releasing a terrible Christmas pop single, becoming a male model, writing a stage show, starring as a villain in a Batman graphic novel, running a nightclub, appearing in the Pan Books of Horror, and standing in for James Bond.
His short stories have appeared in Best British Mysteries, The Time Out Book Of London Short Stories, Dark Terrors, London Noir, Inferno, Neon Lit, Cinema Macabre, the Mammoth Book of Horror and many others. After living in the USA and France he is now married and lives in King's Cross, London and Barcelona, Spain.
Fowler, Christopher. Bryant & May: Hall of Mirrors. Bantam. (Peculiar Crimes Unit, Bk. 15). Dec. 2018. 432p. ISBN 9781101887097. $27; ebk. ISBN 9781101887103. MYS
In Fowler's 15th Bryant and May adventure (after Wild Chamber), London's oldest detectives are young again--or at least younger. It is 1969, and the city is swinging with mod fashion, music, and art. John May embraces the cultural changes, but socially awkward Arthur Bryant takes a more jaundiced view, calling Swinging London "a con." After accidentally blowing up a regatta barge painted like the Yellow Submarine, the duo are banished from the Peculiar Crimes Unit and ordered to protect a key prosecution witness for the weekend. But Monty Hatton-Jones insists on traveling to Tavistock Hall in rural Kent to attend a house party hosted by Lady Banks-Marion and her son, Harry. Mayhem and murder break out when the manor and its inhabitants are cut off from the outside world by bad weather and army maneuvers. It's up to Bryant and May to save the day.
VERDICT In this off-the-wall salute to the Golden Age country house mystery, longtime fans will enjoy discovering the origins of Bryant's trademark scarf, yellow Mini- Cooper, and love of medicinal marijuana, but they will miss the series' trademark London lore. Likewise the lively humor has devolved into slapstick, and the convoluted plot will try readers' patience. To grasp the charm of this quirky series, newbies should start with an earlier title such as the series opener, Full Dark House. [See Prepub Alert, 6/10/18.]--Wilda Williams, New York
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Library Journals, LLC
http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/reviews/xpress/884170-289/xpress_reviews-first_look_at_new.html.csp
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Williams, Wilda. "Fowler, Christopher. Bryant & May: Hall of Mirrors." Xpress Reviews, 19 Oct. 2018. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A560311553/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=219446c9. Accessed 6 Oct. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A560311553
* Bryant & May: Wild Chamber; A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery
Christopher Fowler. Bantam, $27 (448p) ISBN 978-1-101887-06-6
In British author Fowler's ingenious 14th whodunit featuring London's Peculiar Crimes Unit (after 2016's Bryant & May: Strange Tide), PR executive Helen Forester is strangled while walking her dog in a private garden. Somehow someone entered and exited the garden, which is for the exclusive use of the residents of Clement Crescent, unseen by Ritchie Jackson, the gardener on duty at the time. Helen's murder occurs less than a year after the freakish death of her seven-year-old son, Charlie, after a glass fragment entered his eye and caused a fatal blood clot. Might there be a connection? The PCU's investigation is spearheaded by its oddest and most successful investigator, Arthur Bryant, who has been experiencing lucid dreams, including one in which he converses with 17th-century diarist Samuel Pepys. Meanwhile, the unit's perpetual foe, specialized police budget overseer Leslie Faraday, schemes to use Helen's murder as a pretext to privatize London's green spaces and eliminate the PCU once and for all. Fowler brilliantly mixes humor into a fair-play whodunit with an unexpected solution. Agent: Howard Morhaim, Howard Morhaim Literary Agency. (Dec.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Bryant & May: Wild Chamber; A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery." Publishers Weekly, 23 Oct. 2017, p. 66. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A512184178/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=eb1c9ee1. Accessed 6 Oct. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A512184178
Fowler, Christopher BRYANT & MAY: HALL OF MIRRORS Bantam (Adult Fiction) $27.00 12, 4 ISBN: 978-1-101-88709-7
A prequel that finds Fowler's imperishable detective duo (Bryant & May: Wild Chamber, 2017, etc.) already in hot water back in 1969 as they struggle to solve a country-house mystery deep in Kent, far from the resources of their Peculiar Crimes Unit.
When their lively pursuit of sociopathic criminal Burlington Bertie, ne Cedric Powles, gets a little too lively for public safety, Bryant and May's boss, Roger Trapp, dispatches them on a more routine assignment: to babysit businessman Monty Hatton-Jones over the weekend, keeping him safe until he can give evidence against crooked developer Sir Charles Chamberlain Monday morning. What could possibly go wrong? Only this: Monty's fears for his life don't prevent him from accepting a weekend invitation from Lady Beatrice Banks-Marion, who's about to sell her late husband's estate, Tavistock Hall, to millionaire Donald Burke for repurposing as the Burke Better Business School. Monty has a deal brewing with Burke and doesn't intend to be talked out of the trip. Instead, he gets Bryant and May invited along with him, where they join Lady Beatrice's stoner son, Lord Harry; Burke; his wife, Norma; his lawyer, Toby Stafford; nightclub singer Vanessa Harrow; mystery novelist Pamela Claxon; decorator Slade Wilson; the Rev. Trevor Patethric; and diverse members of the Tavistock domestic staff. A local army unit's war games effectively isolate the place, making departure possible only through death, which obligingly arrives in the shape of five separate attempts on the lives of the assembled company, two of them successful. Suddenly, protecting the life of Monty Hatton-Jones looks like the least of Bryant and May's problems.
The inspired idea of revisiting the youth of his aged sleuths in swinging England is matched by Fowler's customary gusto in sweating the details. More fully fleshed-out suspects, clues, red herrings, twists, and honest mystery and detection than in the last three whodunits you read.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Fowler, Christopher: BRYANT & MAY: Hall of Mirrors." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Sept. 2018. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A553948990/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=7ffe1b09. Accessed 6 Oct. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A553948990
Bryant & May: Hall of Mirrors.
By Christopher Fowler.
Dec. 2018. 432p. Bantam, $27 (9781101887097); e-book (9781101887103).
The intrepid detective duo of Arthur Bryant and John May, of London's Peculiar Crimes Unit, encounters murder and mayhem in an English manor. "Shades of Agatha Christie," as Bryant comments in recounting the case, which took place in September 1969. Bryant and May are at risk of losing their livelihoods after accidentally blowing up a barge. They can redeem themselves by guarding Monty Hatton-Jones, a key witness in an upcoming trial, who insists on attending a weekend party at Tavistock Hall, soon to be sold by Lady Banks-Marion to millionaire Donald Burke. So the detectives go along, joining guests Burke and his wife, his lawyer, his young mistress, an interior decorator, a vicar, and a mystery novelist. With the manor cut off from the outside world over the weekend, thanks to nearby army maneuvers, the mayhem starts when a gargoyle is pushed from the roof onto Hatton-Jones. This is just the beginning, with the narrative veering between laugh-out-loud funny to macabre (a body in a macerator, murder by knitting needle). This fifteenth Bryant and May outing concludes with an updating on the lives of all the characters. Could this signal an end to the long-running, eccentric, and consistently entertaining series? Let's hope not.--Michele Leber
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Leber, Michele. "Bryant & May: Hall of Mirrors." Booklist, 15 Oct. 2018, p. 23. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A559688072/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=65d0b964. Accessed 6 Oct. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A559688072
The Book of Forgotten Authors Christopher Fowler. Hodder & Stoughton, $15.99 trade paper (400p) ISBN 978-1-78648490-1
Fowler's quirky book is an ode to musty paperbacks and a testament to the idea that "real readers don't forget." Consisting of 100 short articles and 12 essays on "forgotten" authors--that is, those whose books are hard to obtain and whose names "drew blank looks" from Fowler's focus group of fellow book lovers--the work covers writers that include early 20th-century realist James Hanley, whose novel cycle the Furys, about a working-class family's downfall, was compared to Conrad and Dostoyevsky, and Richard Marsh, a prolific Victorian (and reformed con-artist playboy) whose macabre tale of shape-shifting and hypnotism, The Beetle, is "worth reading in tandem with Dracula," which it initially outsold. Often, these writers toiled as screenwriters as well (many contributed scripts or stories to Alfred Hitchcock Presents, among them George Langelaan, John Collier, and Cornell Woolrich), and some frankly are less forgotten than others (Richard Condon, author of The Manchurian Candidate, appears here, as does T.H. White, author of The Once and Future King). But even famous authors have forgotten works, it seems, as the essay on Dickens suggests (Fowler points to his coauthored works Mugby Junction and The Haunted House). While Fowler's short articles make his book a bit fatiguing to read cover-to-cover, readers interested in exploring out-of-print fiction and other literary curiosities will find this to be a valuable and entertaining guide. Agent: James Wills. Watson Little (U.K). (Oct.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Book of Forgotten Authors." Publishers Weekly, 15 July 2019, p. 63. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A593965787/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=380e9b79. Accessed 6 Oct. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A593965787
Fowler, Christopher BRYANT & MAY: THE LONELY HOUR Bantam (Adult Fiction) $28.00 12, 3 ISBN: 978-0-525-48582-7
Back from the prequel that followed them to 1969 (Bryant and May: Hall of Mirrors, 2018), the members of the Peculiar Crimes Unit settle in to another round of doing what they do best in present-day London: creating chaos while bringing an unusually single-minded killer to book.
On normal excursions, the Ladies of the Night meet to map the colonies of the bats they're trying to preserve on Hampstead Heath. But insomniac Sparrow (nee Candice) Martin's brief glimpse of a man on the Heath wearing a pig mask and attacking another man while she's separated from the other Ladies sets her latest outing apart. Even though Sparrow takes flight, the bat journal she accidentally leaves behind allows Hugo Blake to track her down with no trouble after he's finished hanging Dhruv Cheema from his ankles amid the branches of a willow tree and stabbing him to death. Not surprisingly, the ghoulish case is sent to the PCU, where the killing of bank employee Luke Dickinson under very different circumstances but with a suspiciously similar weapon persuades DCI Arthur Bryant, the master of arcane knowledge whose sources of information seem to include every seedy character in London, that the killer, who seems to prefer striking at 4 a.m., has other victims in mind--up to three others, by Bryant's precise reckoning. Since no one outside the PCU shares Bryant's unshakeable conviction, it'll be up to his longtime friend and partner, DCI John May; Operations Director Janice Longbright; DS Meera Mangeshkar; DS Colin Bimsley; and the unit's lesser lights to establish not only who the killer is, but what his victims have in common and where he's likely to strike next. Complications ensue along with the wackiest digressions in the business, at least one gobsmacking coincidence, and two deaths that will catch even the most devoted fans of this wacky franchise by surprise.
The crime spree is relatively straightforward, but the devil is in the details, and Fowler's details are hilariously devilish.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Fowler, Christopher: BRYANT & MAY: The Lonely Hour." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Sept. 2019. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A599964491/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=a51e9ec7. Accessed 6 Oct. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A599964491
* Bryant & May: The Lonely Hour: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery
Christopher Fowler. Bantam, $28 (448p) ISBN 978-0-525-48582-7
In Fowler's exceptional 17th novel featuring Arthur Bryant and John May of London's Peculiar Crimes Unit (after 2018's Bryant & May: Hall of Mirrors), the PCU investigates a murder committed with a trocar, a surgical instrument normally used to drain body fluids. A man wearing a pig mask, Hugo Blake, used it on Dhruv Cheema, who worked in his family's fashion business. After hanging Cheema upside down in Hampstead Heath, within a circle of objects associated with satanic rituals, Blake stabbed him in the neck. The next night, Blake stabs another man in the neck before throwing his body over a bridge into the Thames. Fowler maintains suspense by alternating between Blake's bloody campaign and the PCU's desperate efforts to stop it by trying to find a connection between the victims. Meanwhile, Bryant and May's decades-old partnership is tested as never before as the two argue fiercely over how to proceed. This whydunit is the epitome of an intelligent page-turner. Agent: Howard Morhaim, Howard Morhaim Literary. (Dec.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Bryant & May: The Lonely Hour: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery." Publishers Weekly, 16 Sept. 2019, p. 56. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A600450432/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=e5ea2f9c. Accessed 6 Oct. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A600450432
Review: Hall of Mirrors (Bryant & May #15) by Christopher Fowler
December 17, 2018 ~ The Lit Bitch
I happened to pick up the first book in the Bryant and May series a couple of years ago at my local used book shop. The first thing that caught my eye was the interesting and quirky cover.
In a sea of mystery novels the early Bryant and May covers really caught my eye. I would probably have never picked up the books had I not seen these lovely covers.
When I read the first book, the one thing that stood out head and shoulders above the rest was the dead pan banter between the two detectives—they had so much chemistry and it made the story fun to read and the shifting between the younger Bryant and May characters and the now older Bryant and May.
As soon as I was done I went out and bought the next four books in the series because not only did I love the covers but I loved the two detectives. But sadly that’s where things ended for me. I got caught up in other books and other series and just didn’t make my way back to this one for some reason.
Fast forward a few years and here is the 15th book in the series and when it came up for review, I couldn’t pass it up—-mostly because I wanted a quality mystery novel and I knew that author Christopher Fowler wouldn’t disappoint.
London, 1969. With the Swinging Sixties under way, Detectives Arthur Bryant and John May find themselves caught in the middle of a good, old-fashioned manor house murder mystery.
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Hard to believe, but even positively ancient sleuths like Bryant and May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit were young once . . . or at least younger. Flashback to London 1969: mods and dolly birds, sunburst minidresses–but how long would the party last?
After accidentally sinking a barge painted like the Yellow Submarine, Bryant and May are relegated to babysitting one Monty Hatton-Jones, the star prosecution witness in the trial of a disreputable developer whose prefabs are prone to collapse. The job for the demoted detectives? Keep the whistle-blower safe for one weekend.
The task proves unexpectedly challenging when their unruly charge insists on attending a party at the vast estate Tavistock Hall. With falling stone gryphons, secret passageways, rumors of a mythical beast, and an all-too-real dismembered corpse, the bedeviled policemen soon find themselves with “a proper country house murder” on their hands.
Trapped for the weekend, Bryant and May must sort the victims from the suspects, including a hippie heir, a blond nightclub singer, and Monty himself–and nobody is quite who he or she seems to be (summary from Goodreads).
Ok so let’s get this out of the way now—I absolutely hate the cover art. It screams Scooby Doo and it just looks like every other cover to me. It blends in and doesn’t in anyway stand out for me. I love the old cover art with the Bantam editions. Had I seen this one in the store I wouldn’t have even known it was a Bryant and May mystery because the other Bantam edition cover art was used throughout much of the series and was so unique and an easily recognizable branding. I was sad to see that they had gone in a different direction with the cover art.
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That said, you obviously can’t judge a book by it’s cover. Had I done that I would have missed out on yet another wonderful mystery! While I read the first book, there have been 14 other books between the first book and this one so the question then becomes, would I get lost in this book so late in the series.
One of the brilliant things about this series is that as a reader you can basically pick up any book that you want because each case or book is independent of the others. Bryant and May are older now and basically recounting their former adventures with each book being a different case. So if you missed a book here and there, you really don’t need to worry too much about being lost. I love that about this series!
I love how this series moved through pop culture and history. I recall from the first book how much I loved that the Blitz played a large roll in the mystery and ambiance of the story—-that same approach continues in this book as well except now it’s the 1960s so the historical and pop culture elements are different, but no less important in the story.
This is yet another country house party turned murder mystery and I never grow tired of the plot that Agatha Christie made famous. This is such a quirky whodunnit that I never got bored with the mystery/plot or characters. For me this was another win for Fowler.
The mystery was smart and the characters an odd mix but yet perfectly matched.
Challenge/Book Summary:
Book: Hall of Mirrors (Bryant & May #15) by Christopher Fowler
Hardcover, 432 pages
Published December 4th 2018 by Bantam (first published March 22nd 2018)
ISBN
1101887095 (ISBN13: 9781101887097)
Review copy provided by: Publisher/Author in exchange for an honest review, all opinions are my own
Recommendation: 4 out of 5
Genre: mystery, detective novel
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The Book of Forgotten Authors by Christopher Fowler – Book Review
by whisperingstories · Published 6th November 2017 · Updated 28th February 2018
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The Book of Forgotten Authors by Christopher Fowler – Book Review
The Book of Forgotten Authors
Author – Christopher Fowler
Publisher – riverrun
Pages – 384
Released – 5th October 2017
ISBN-13 – 978-1786484895
Format – ebook, paperback, hardcover, audio
Reviewer – Stacey
I received a free copy of this book
Absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder. It makes people think you’re dead.
So begins Christopher Fowler’s foray into the back catalogues and backstories of 99 authors who, once hugely popular, have all but disappeared from our shelves.
Whether male or female, domestic or international, flash-in-the-pan or prolific, mega-seller or prize-winner – no author, it seems, can ever be fully immune from the fate of being forgotten. And Fowler, as well as remembering their careers, lifts the lid on their lives, and why they often stopped writing or disappeared from the public eye.
These 99 journeys are punctuated by 12 short essays about faded once-favourites: including the now-vanished novels Walt Disney brought to the screen, the contemporary rivals of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie who did not stand the test of time, and the women who introduced us to psychological suspense many decades before it conquered the world.
This is a book about books and their authors. It is for book lovers, and is written by one who could not be a more enthusiastic, enlightening and entertaining guide.
The Book of Forgotten Authors, is a title that couldn’t be more fitting as this book is just that. It is filled to the brim with 99 authors that Christopher Fowler deems to have been forgotten by readers.
The book has been separated into twelve different sections, with a chapter in between regarding the following subjects:-
– Why are good authors forgotten?
– The Forgotten Disney Connection
– The Forgotten (pre-Tarantino) Pulp Fiction
– The Forgotten rivals of Holmes, Bond and Miss Marple
– The Forgotten Books of Charles Dickens
– The Forgotten Queens of suspense
– The Forgotten Nonsense Writers
– The Forgotten Booker Winners
– Forgotten for Writing Too Little and Too Much
– The Rediscovered Forgotten Authors
– Lost in Translation: The Forgotten World Authors
– The Justly Forgotten Authors
Some of the authors in the book that are deemed ‘forgotten’ you may actually be familiar with, whilst others you may never have heard of before, but you may recognise the names of their books, or even the movie adaptations of them.
An example is Pierre Boulle – Some may have never heard of him before, but I bet a few of you have heard of the film ‘Bridge Over the River Kwai’, and I suppose more famously ‘Planet of the Apes’. Both were his writing.
What about Arnold Ridley? For those over a certain age, and in the UK, you may know him better as Private Godfrey from the Dad’s Army TV series. However in his younger years he wrote many plays, including ‘The Ghost Train’ starring Arthur Askey.
Each of the 99 authors are given a small biography, information on their life, their books and why Christopher Fowler believes that they have been forgotten.
The book is quite addictive and I was surprised at how much I became hooked by the authors. I was fully invested in the information provided and loved learning about each of them, especially those I’d never even heard of before.
In someways I actually found myself feeling sorry for them. After all that time, effort and dedication it took to write the book(s) that they hoped people wanted to read, and when first published people did read them, yet years/generations later, a lot of people don’t even know who they are/were, or the names of their books.
Christopher Fowler has opened my eyes to a diverse arrangement of authors whose work I will have to look out for.
Reviewed by Stacey