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The Invisible Code
A Peculiar Crimes Unit Series, #10
Christopher Fowler

Bantam
December 17, 2013
ISBN 0345528654
British / Detective / Slightly paranormal…

Reviewed by Brenda Weeaks

 

Fowler is best known for his horror fiction. I'm not a horror fan, so I’m glad he created this series or I would've never discovered how talented he really is…

Peculiar Crimes Unit works the odder mysteries - mysteries that seem a tad supernatural. In this mystery Arthur Bryant is sure the answer involves witchcraft, secret codes and an ancient London myth. John May doesn’t really agree but vows to risk his life and follow Bryant.

It all starts with two children witch hunting, then an unusual death at St. Bride's Church. The victim’s death is so odd Bryant wants the case transferred to Peculiar Crimes. But Oskar Kasavian (aka the devil) at the Home Office won’t hear of it. He wants Peculiar Crimes to just disappear. When Oskar calls Bryant and May to his office they expect a reprimand. Instead he hires them to monitor his young Albanian wife. She’s been acting strangely and can’t get along with the wives of the other Home Office officials. (After seeing these witches in action I wouldn’t either.) Needless to say, the original case ends up in their hands as does the murder of a journalist following Oskar’s wife. Both cases get weirder and weirder, and this has Bryant looking in to the supernatural aspects of it all. Meanwhile the rest of the unit does their part and takes a beating for it – literally.

I can’t get enough of this Unit. It’s an eccentric group with Bryant and Mays at the helm and everyone knows it but their official leader, Raymond Land. This series has been labeled thriller, horror, supernatural, cozy, police procedural, detective novel, etc. The series is a bit of everything and each mystery may be more of one than the other. But the one thing each mystery has is a complex whodunit ready to be cracked. Read the first in series and you’ll be hooked.

Reviews of other titles in this series

Full Dark House #1
The Water Room #2
The Memory of Blood # 9 [review1] [review 2] [review 3]
Invisible Code #10 [review 1] [review 2]

Reviewed 2014
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