RIP Christopher Fowler—whose off-center detectives solved unusual murders with often an occult angle
Author photo by Gabrielle Sutori
“I was going to finish at book six but it got a groundswell of very loyal—strangely loyal—fans.”—Christopher Fowler
Remembering the late author, who won awards for his popular (if bizarre) occult-like mystery series. In the video below, a number of authors and critics discuss Fowler’s novels.
We lament the loss of British mystery writer Christopher Fowler (1953-2023), whose off-center detectives Arthur Bryant and John May solved unusual murders with often an occult angle that baffled the regular police. As members of the London’s Peculiar Crimes Unit, the pair solved bizarre cases in like twenty novels.
Fowler died of cancer, which he was diagnosed with three years ago. He was 69.
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As an author, Fowler’s fiction also includes the Hammer Films-influenced horror novel Hell Train and the Dracula-obsessed mystery Reconciliation Day (Bibliomysteries). His awards include the 2015 CWA Dagger in the Library (for his entire body of work), The Last Laugh Award (twice) and the British Fantasy Award (multiple times), the Edge Hill Prize and the Green Carnation Award. Beyond his mysteries, his other writing included audio and stage plays, graphic novels, video games and screenplays.
In the Bryant & May mysteries, fans of the genre have often spotted references to classics of the golden age, brilliantly transposed into the modern era and available technology. The tales were also fun tours of British locations and weird scenarios and (perceived to be) impossible crimes as the detectives bantered and broke procedural rules.
“I think everybody likes walking through London in their mind, and because it has so many literary connotations, London is already slightly blurred with fiction,” Fowler told The Guardian in a 2021 interview. “I expected that I was writing very parochially for a very limited audience, and it turned out that what I was doing was the reverse—the more abstract, strange and esoteric I became, the more people liked it. I was going to finish at book six but it got a groundswell of very loyal—strangely loyal—fans.”
In the video below, a number of authors and critics discuss Fowler’s novels.
Christopher Fowler on Crime Thriller Club
A number of fans and critics discuss the finer points of Fowler’s mystery series. “The occult does crop up in the Bryant & May series quite a lot in that kind of weird dark history of London,” one of the hosts says, “which I find absolutely fascinating.”
Related links:
Christopher Fowler: The real-life background of Bryant & May
Christopher Fowler: Complete Bryant & May Mysteries In Order