Arthur Bryant remembers these lost cases as if they were yesterday. Unfortunately, he doesn't remember yesterday, so the newly revealed facts could come as a surprise to everyone, including his exasperated partner John May. Here, then, is the truth about the Covent Garden opera diva and the seventh reindeer, the body that falls from the Tate Gallery, the ordinary London street corner where strange accidents keep occurring, the consul's son discovered...

London's most brilliant but unconventional detectives, Arthur Bryant and John May, must plumb the depths of a particularly murky mystery. The Peculiar Crimes Unit faces its most baffling case yet -- and if Bryant and May can't rise to the challenge, the entire unit may go under. Near the Tower of London, along the River Thames, the body of a woman has been discovered chained to a stone post and left to drown. Curiously, only one set of footprints...

"The brilliant duo of Arthur Bryant and John May uncover a nefarious plot behind the seemingly innocuous death of an old lady--and when the case leads them to the London Bridge, it all comes down on the Peculiar Crimes Unit. Ninety-one-year-old Alice Hoffman died alone in her top-floor flat. Social services say she slipped through the cracks in a failing system. But detectives Arthur Bryant and John May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit have their suspicions....

"Hard to believe, but even positively ancient sleuths like Bryant and May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit were young once--or at least younger. Flashback to London 1969: mods and dolly birds, sunburst minidresses--but how long would the party last? After accidentally sinking a barge painted like the Yellow Submarine, Bryant and May are relegated to babysitting one Monty Hatton-Jones, the star prosecution witness in the trial of a disreputable developer...