It's a crime tailor-made for the Peculiar Crimes Unit: a controversial artist is murdered and displayed as part of her own outrageous installation. No suspects, no motive, no evidence - it's business as usual for the Unit's cantankerous founding partners, Arthur Bryant and John May. But this time they have an eyewitness. According to twelve-year-old Luke Tripp, the killer was a cape-clad highwayman atop a black stallion.
The newspapers referred to it as the case of the seventy seven clocks. There was quite a fuss at the time. We got into terrible trouble. Dear fellow, it was one of our most truly peculiar cases. I remember as if it was yesterday.' In fact, Arthur Bryant remembers very little about yesterday, but he does remember the oddest investigation of his career.. It was late in 1973. As strikes and blackouts ravaged the country during Edward Heath's 'Winter of Discontent', sundry members of a wealthy, aristocratic family were being disposed of in a variety of grotesque ways - by reptile, by bomb, by haircut.
When an elderly lady is found inside her own house with her lungs full of river water, London's Peculiar Crimes Unit is called in to search for a logical solution. But the property's next tenant is plagued by mysterious damp patches and the sound of rushing water, and Arthur Bryant decides to divert the investigation into strange new territory. Meanwhile, his partner John May finds himself in hot water when he sets out to save the reputation of an academic whose arcane knowledge of London's forgotten underground rivers looks set to destroy his career.
When a bomb devastates the office of London's most unusual police unit and claims the life of Arthur Bryant, his partner John May searches for clues to the bomber's identity. Before long he is on the trail through Blitz-ravaged London and the gothic world of the theatre.
A Tale of Two Cities (Level 5 Audio CD NO BOOK) Compass Classic Readers:Charles Dickens' historial saga is part of the Classic Readers series. English language learners of all ages will enjoy developing their vocabulary and reading fluency as they read about the astute but self-indulgent English barrister Sydney Carton, the virtuous French aristocrat Charles Darnay and his wife, and the enchantingly upstanding Lucie Manette in the midst of the French Revolution. Students and teachers alike will be entranced with this sweeping historical drama of persecution, revolution and ultimately, spiritual redemption in A Tale of Two Cities.
