Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 35

Going Home Is Just…Different: Part 1

No longer a place of dirt and danger Today I returned to my birthplace, Greenwich in South-East London. For most off its life is was a cut-off corner of London, awkward to reach at a point where the river broadens and switchbacks to create two traditionally isolated peninsulars, one containing the leafy elegance of maritime Greenwich, […]

Bring On The Bodies

For some time now writer and editor Martin Edwards has been unearthing rarely seen crime gems from the British Library, and looking at the history of the British crime novel in volumes like ‘The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books’ and ‘The Golden Age of Murder’, the latter concerning the badly behaved author-members of […]

Sidelong Glances at the PCU Characters: Arthur Bryant

It began with my former creative partner, the other half of my brain; unreconstructed and shamelessly old-fashioned, usually right about everything, motto; ‘The world would be a better place if everyone did what I told them.’ And generally speaking it would have been. The physical embodiment of Arthur Bryant, whom no-one dares to call by […]

I’m Going Up The Dog

  The pubs are open in Old London Town for the moment, and they’re very quiet – a joy for the drinker, a nightmare for the publican. Workers simply aren’t returning to their offices, and that means the central London mental health support services, of which pubs must be the biggest, don’t have their custom. Yet […]

Why I Don’t Do Appendices

I only ever added an appendix to one Bryant & May novel – the very first one. I gave it up after that. I think I wanted to parody the entire practice but can’t quite remember now why I did it. Maybe I wanted it to prove useful for anyone wishing to locate that section […]

The Baztan Follies

Incredibly, the reviews for the trilogy are terrific. If Lockdown brought one good thing for me it was the return of really awful B movies. After scrolling through Netflix’s premium listings, all seemingly aimed at children, I dredged the dross at the bottom of their EPG. As a lover of Spanish cinema how could I […]

I Never Knew That About London Either

There’s a hole at the centre of London’s artistic history, and it’s most noticeable when you walk around the National Gallery. Because just where you think art would be at its richest, at the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment, there’s bugger all. Of course it all comes down to Henry VIII. The Dissolution of […]

Sidelong Glances At The PCU Characters: The Two Daves

When I’m coming up with characters, some turn up simply because they’re needed at that point. I pull elements from the history of pop culture, a few classical allusions and the traits of friends, but the image of the workmen has always been there in my head. I wanted a Greek chorus to react against […]

How COVID Is Changing Us

A Bit Too Real A walk through Central London is a shock. For the past four months it has been like a quiet country village – and despite a half-hearted effort to get people into offices, it still is. A great many of the shops remain shut. There’s a cat asleep in the middle of St […]

Sidelong Glances At The PCU Characters: Janice Longbright

  Janice Longbright is an amalgamation of all the tough women I had ever encountered working in London’s Soho. I spent over a quarter of a century negotiating the madness of this tiny square of land, working and socialising there, but not being much of a late night person I was never one to drag […]