If you're searching for something really different in the overcrowded field of crime writing, then do yourself a favour and pick up a novel by Christopher Fowler. The author's Bryant and May series is proving to be one of the quirkiest and most ingenious pleasures to be found in the genre: atmospheric, sardonically funny and craftily suspenseful. Of course, this will come as no surprise to those who had discovered Fowler via his earlier writing in the horror and fantasy field (another genre in which he quickly distinguished himself from most of the competition). But there is no doubt that he has really found his métier with his recent books set in the Met's Peculiar Crimes unit. The Home Office is on the point of shutting this unorthodox unit down, when an important staff member is found dead in a sealed autopsy room. Suspects are numerous, and as a wintry Britain shivers, the brilliantly intuitive detective duo who are Fowler's protagonists are hors de combat where this particular investigation is concerned; on their way to a scientific convention, they have been snowed in after a blizzard in Devon. Can Bryant and May conduct their investigations from afar? However, this is not their only problem -- a psychotic killer is haunting the Dartmoor Road, with a homicidal shopping list. This is quite delicious stuff, delivered with all the assurance we have come to expect from Fowler. As ever, his eccentric team of ageing detectives are one of the most original creations around, and the outrageously inventive plots that Fowler conjures are a match for the characterisation. If you're beginning to feel that the crime genre is running out of steam, the slightest acquaintance with one of Christopher Fowler's Bryant and May novels will quickly disabuse you of this notion --Barry Forshaw
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