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Jaksen's Reviews > Bryant & May and the Memory of Blood
Bryant & May and the Memory of Blood (Bryant & May, #9)
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Wonderful wonderful Bryant and May novel! One of the best and I'm reading A LOT of them. This one involves puppets!!
A digression: I LOVE PUPPETS. (I'll stop with the caps now.) As a young girl and well into my teens I had about 60 puppets. Store-bought, hand-made, including some marionettes. (One an 'expensive' marionette my sister bought for me in Italy. Hooray!) I wrote plays for them, staged them with my best friend - she had about 20 puppets of her own - and it all makes up some of the best, sweetest, most wonderful memories of my childhood, and so...
Back to the book: Murders are happening which seem to revolve around an entire cast of Punch and Judy puppets, originals, held in a collection by a rather bold and arrogant would-be theatrical king. He's bought an old building which was once a theater and now is staging plays in it. The first one involves double murders and gory, Gothic undertones - the young millennials love it! However, death is happening to cast members and those surrounding the production, each in ghastly horrible ways and each with a Punch and Judy puppet nearby.
(Yeah I love this stuff, eat it up with sauce on top.)
Senior Detective Arthur Bryant, elderly and frumpy member of the PCU, (a special unit in London which investigates serious crimes that might endanger the public or embarrass those in power), and his (also elderly) partner John May, a more urbane and by-the-book detective, are sent to investigate. We've got old buildings here, and buildings-being-built as the new overtakes the old in Old London. There are so many possible suspects in this one! Each one fascinating and each with a separate story about 'what happened' the night of the first murder, which took place in an elegant high-rise.
Bryant and May are up to their usual tricks this time, making trouble for their superiors, and doing all they can - officially, creatively, whatever it takes - to sort this one out. This includes consorting with a white witch, looking up the long and very complex history of the Punch and Judy shows - (And who knew Punch was little more than a sadistic narcissist and egotist?) - and dealing with the usual run-around of inconsistent and unreliable 'witnesses.' Loved it.
Did I say loved it? I DID!
Five stars
A digression: I LOVE PUPPETS. (I'll stop with the caps now.) As a young girl and well into my teens I had about 60 puppets. Store-bought, hand-made, including some marionettes. (One an 'expensive' marionette my sister bought for me in Italy. Hooray!) I wrote plays for them, staged them with my best friend - she had about 20 puppets of her own - and it all makes up some of the best, sweetest, most wonderful memories of my childhood, and so...
Back to the book: Murders are happening which seem to revolve around an entire cast of Punch and Judy puppets, originals, held in a collection by a rather bold and arrogant would-be theatrical king. He's bought an old building which was once a theater and now is staging plays in it. The first one involves double murders and gory, Gothic undertones - the young millennials love it! However, death is happening to cast members and those surrounding the production, each in ghastly horrible ways and each with a Punch and Judy puppet nearby.
(Yeah I love this stuff, eat it up with sauce on top.)
Senior Detective Arthur Bryant, elderly and frumpy member of the PCU, (a special unit in London which investigates serious crimes that might endanger the public or embarrass those in power), and his (also elderly) partner John May, a more urbane and by-the-book detective, are sent to investigate. We've got old buildings here, and buildings-being-built as the new overtakes the old in Old London. There are so many possible suspects in this one! Each one fascinating and each with a separate story about 'what happened' the night of the first murder, which took place in an elegant high-rise.
Bryant and May are up to their usual tricks this time, making trouble for their superiors, and doing all they can - officially, creatively, whatever it takes - to sort this one out. This includes consorting with a white witch, looking up the long and very complex history of the Punch and Judy shows - (And who knew Punch was little more than a sadistic narcissist and egotist?) - and dealing with the usual run-around of inconsistent and unreliable 'witnesses.' Loved it.
Did I say loved it? I DID!
Five stars
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Reading Progress
January 10, 2021
–
Started Reading
January 10, 2021
– Shelved
January 10, 2021
– Shelved as:
mystery-series
January 12, 2021
–
0.0%
"This is the only series I've ever read where I often pause and laugh out loud, and I am NOT a laugh out loud person. I sometimes have to stop and think: what? What did he Just Say? Anyhow the murders in the one involve puppets! Can you believe it? I owned over 60 puppets as a child (and teenager.) Hand-made, store-bought, marionettes, and wrote plays for them with my best friend! And puppets as murderers? Yes!"
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January 15, 2021
–
Finished Reading
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Jan 15, 2021 07:47AM
Great review.
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