Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 404

Atmospheric London

With the centre of the city currently being torn up to install the immense Crossrail line that will connect East to West, you'd think the backstreets would be brighter than ever, but it seems a lot of the lighting has been dialled down – there was talk of reducing light pollution recently, so perhaps that [...]

Best. Name. Ever.

Oh no! More London Books!

Yet more London books to bankrupt us! Matthew Sweet has produced an account of lives, losses and inconsiderate love-making in 'The West End Front', from the egregious con man Sir Curtis Lampson to the louche inhabitants of the 'Pink Sink' bar, Fifth columnists, communists, spies, spivs, charlatans and deposed monarchs, they're all here. Delightfully gossipy [...]

The Train Arrives on January 5th!

Okay, we have a date and we're up on Amazon (and will be in all good bookshops) so here's the official blurb on 'Hell Train', my chiller-thriller epic from Solaris Books…

'Imagine there was a supernatural chiller that Hammer Films never made. A grand epic produced at the studio's peak, which played like a cross between [...]

The Readers Have Spoken

Regular readers of this site will know that I try to maintain a level of interactivity about my books, and it appears from your comments that you favour stand-alone stories with an overall development arc that moves the lives of those in the Peculiar Crimes Unit ever-onwards.

Thank God for that, because it's where I'm headed. [...]

Is Guy Fawkes Back?

After years of being swamped by bland colour-branded shopping-friendly Halloween, could Guy Fawkes night possibly be making a comeback?

The recent protests against the city bankers have seen a return of Guy Fawkes masks, but specifically, the masks sported by the villain/ hero of Alan Moore's graphic novel 'V For Vendetta'. Which is interesting, because David [...]

London's Richest Residents Will Be Children

We all know that in the United States 1% of the population owns 99% of the wealth, but clearly the unequal distribution of money affects the rest of the world too. Although the 36-floor Heron Tower, situated in London's Square Mile, is reckoning to offer flats from half a million, it will also house the [...]

London's Closed Rooms

This is where I'd Like To Have Dinner. Just once, to say I did.

It's the Guildhall, London, which has been the corporate home of the City of London for eight hundred years. Surrounded by statues of Nelson, Wellington, Chatham, Pitt, Churchill, and Gog and Magog (the 1953 versions), the legendary giants who founded London in [...]

Re:View – 'The Artist'

There aren't many films about these days that you can genuinely call enchanting, but this is one of them. Having wowed audiences at Cannes (a year when every film was about death or violence) 'The Artist' is that rare thing, a crowd-pleaser without compromise or sentiment.

It's a love story and a comedy about a man [...]

A Bryant & May Question

'Bryant & May and the Invisible Code' is off and running this week, and I'm buried neck-deep in research about Bloomsbury, madness, codes, churches and Hellfire Clubs. There's a lot to cover in this volume, which needs to tie up some backstory and stand alone as a good mystery.

At the moment, we still have no [...]