Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler

I found this book on a list of urban fantasy novels, but it's fantasy element is much more minimal than I expected, which annoyed me because I spent the entire book thinking 'okay, is this where the magic happens?' but it never was. I guess it works as a good detective story, but I sort of ruined it for myself by constantly waiting for the fantasy bit to happen. Some parts of it are really violent, which put me off, and I had a hard time getting into it and visualising what was going on. However, it's a pretty clever book, which explores theatre, psychological damage, and the layers of history in London. The solution to the mystery was a bit of a letdown, though it was really grotesque and disturbing. One of the central themes of the book is how London during the Blitz maps onto and compares with present-day London and urban crime. I really liked the connections between the two, and I also enjoyed the relationship (quickly becoming a friendship) of the two central characters, detectives Arthur Bryant and John May. The highly eccentric and socially blundering Bryant was especially endearing, and many parts of it were quite funny. The ending tied the whole story up neatly, and was pretty satisfying. However, much of the plot was unnecessarily meandering, and included a bizarrely improbable red herring that took up way too much space and mental energy. I have no intention of reading any more books in the series, but this one was fairly enjoyable.