Originally built to house the workers of Victorian London, Balaklava Street is now an oasis in the heart of Kentish Town and ripe for gentrification. But then the body of an elderly woman is found at Number 5. Her death would appear to have been peaceful but for the fact that her throat is full of river water. It falls to the Met's Peculiar Crimes Unit, led by London's longest-serving detectives, Arthur Bryant and John May, to search for something resembling a logical solution.
Their initial investigations draw a blank and Bryant's attention is diverted into strange and arcane new territory, while May finds himself in hot water when he attempts to save the reputation of an academic whose knowledge of the city's forgotten underground rivers looks set to ruin his career. In the meantime, the new owner of Number 5 is increasingly unsettled by the damp in the basement of her home, the particularly resilient spiders and the ghostly sound of rushing water . . .
Pooling their information to investigate hitherto undiscovered secrets of the city, Bryant and May make some sinister connections and realize that, in a London filled with the rich, the poor and the dispossessed, there's still something a desperate individual is willing to kill for - and kill again to protect. With the PCU facing an uncertain future, the death toll mounts and two of British fiction's most enigmatic detectives must face madness, greed and revenge, armed only with their wits, their own idiosyncratic practices and a plentiful supply of boiled sweets, in a wickedly sinuous mystery that goes to the heart of every London home.

The matchless if cantankerous detective duo of Inspectors Bryant and May investigate murky and murderous goings on beneath London's streets.

About the Author
Christopher Fowler was the multiple award-winning author of almost fifty novels and short story collections, including the celebrated Bryant & May mysteries. His other novels include Roofworld, Spanky, The Sand Men and Hot Water. He has also written two acclaimed memoirs, Paperboy (winner of the Green Carnation Prize) and Film Freak, plus The Book of Forgotten Authors and Peculiar London, Bryant and May's singular and eccentric guide to the city. In 2015 Chris was awarded the Crime Writers Association's coveted 'Dagger in the Library' for his body of work. He lived in London and Barcelona. Diagnosed with cancer just as the UK went into lockdown in 2020, Chris died on 2nd March 2023.

Reviews
'Atmospheric, hugely beguiling and as filled with tricks and sleights of hand as a magician's sleeve...this is English gothic at its eccentric best; a combination of Ealing comedy and grand opera: witty, charismatic, occasionally touching and with a genuine power to thrill' * JOANNE HARRIS *
'An evocatively reverential tribute to the genre...the clash of temperaments between Bryant and May makes them great detectives' * TIME OUT *
'The striking gothic setting of London under fire proves fruitful ground for a bizarre dark comedy of an investigation...bawdy, unpredictable and at times hilarious, with a cast of wonderful grotesques' -- Maxim Jakubowski * GUARDIAN *
'A writer of extraordinary imagination' -- Sunday Express

'Very cleverly plotted...simultaneously scary and alluring'

-- Daily Telegraph Books of the Year



Book Information
ISBN 9780553815535
Author Christopher Fowler
Format Paperback
Page Count 432
Imprint Bantam Books (Transworld Publishers a division of the Random House Group)
Publisher Transworld Publishers Ltd
Weight(grams) 293g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 127mm * 26mm