The Victoria Vanishes

Sigh. After the intimacy of [Three Junes], this mystery was an annoying hack. It does not aspire to great literature, of course, but the contrast was unpleasant. ( )

This is astonishingly good. Fowler is erudite, his writing sublime, his knowledge of arcane trivia of London behind comparison, his characters lovable and his books funny. ( )

Had not read a Bryant & May PCU book before. This is late in the series (though maybe all of the books in the series end with the threatened dissolution of the PCU), so I'll be looking in secondhand shops for the first one. Liked the dry humor. ( )

A delightful mystery that weaves through a dozen or more ancient London pubs and their histories. ( )

'But seeing as you're here too, tell me, how long would it take a man to build a Victorian pub from scratch and then dismantle it again? Could he do it in a single night?'
Bryant explained his predicament.
Beaufort's initial look of surprise transmuted into concentration as he applied himself to the puzzle. 'It would be easier to go the other way around,' he said. 'Hide the pub behind a shop, because the Victorians built things to last. They used stronger mortar, thicker tiles, denser metals. But you could get a shop front up in an hour just by whacking a few sheets of coloured Perspex over the brickwork and holding them in place with a handful of screws. Cover the windows with posters, strip the interior furniture, hide the bar behind racks of magazines, hire some old guy to sit at a counter and fob you off with some story about how he'd been there for years. Pubs usually have the capacity to be brightly lit, because the lights are traditionally turned up after time has been called, so they wouldn't have to replace the lighting. I can see how that might just work.'
'I don't know, Bryant admitted. 'It sounds loopy even to me.'
'I didn't say it was a sane idea, just that it's possible.
There's one way to find out, said Beaufort. 'I've got a crowbar in my car.'

When several middle-aged women are murdered in London pubs without anyone noticing what is happening, the Pecular Crimes Unit are called in and Arthur Bryant's knowledge of arcane public house history soon leads them to a likely suspect. But were the victims really chosen at random or is there something else behind it?

The Home Office are still out to close the PCU down and rid themselves of the troublesome detectives, and things are looking bleak by the end of the book, but The Victoria Vanishes is book 6 in a series containing 15 novels and some short stories, so something must happen to save them in the next book. ( )