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Now or her leading character she has taken the young prince who elegantly danced as Apollo, the Sun God, then later, the mature monarch who dazzled the whole o Europe. But not e erybody will be trans ixed by this portrait o the Sun King and his satellites. According to oltaire, Louis XI showed his attributes early. Antonia raser is a writer o such ease and e ocation that her book on the Sun King and the emale stars that surrounded him is probably the nearest we are e er likely to get to the pleasure-lo ing li e at the court o Louis XI . As she demonstrated in pre ious biographies o Charles II and Marie Antoinette, or esoteric detail, or marrying moments o grace and wit, no other historian is raser's equal. With such rich storylines to tap into, the problem is not one o inding cases or Bryant and May to in estigate, but o choosing between them.Did I succeed in creating memorable detecti es? Only time will tell. But i ha ing un while unlocking knowledge is any sign o accomplishment, I guess the Bryant & May iles will remain open or some time yet.To order a copy o Christopher owler's ourth Bryant & May mystery, 'Ten Second Staircase', (Doubleday ?12.99) or ?11.50 ( ree p&p), call Independent Books Direct on 08700 798 897.

Old West End bars like Gerry's, Eileen's, the Troy and the Colony were illed with sel -conscious eccentrics. The ones I' e ound since are the real thing, packed with impassioned people who don't belie e they are in any way strange.In the search or original plots, I decided to produce a modern take on each type o "classic" crime in turn, rom the locked-room mystery to the whodunnit. The unlikeliest elements o these tales turned out to be mined rom London's orgotten lore; tales o lost paintings, demonised celebrities, buried sacri ices, mysterious guilds and social panics had casts o whores, mountebanks, lunatics and impresarios who ha e been washed aside by the tide o history, but now their descendants seem to be all around us. They knew that tomorrow night their iews would be can assed by another arcane gathering, the antasy Writers Group, perhaps, or the Tony Hancock an Club. A riend rom New York hoped I would adopt the style o ictorian no els. She lamented the passing o London's alleyway curiosities, but had an idealised notion o ogbound streets that has taken us generations to shake o . I told her I belie ed the core o modern London to be as quirky as e er, and set out to pro e my point.

The back-rooms o pubs, or example, still house all manner o peculiar club meetings. I recently spent an e ening with the Dracula Society (not to be con used with the ampire Society; they're still not on speaking terms) in a Paddington theatre pub where glass-rinsing barmaids joined in arguments concerning Darwinism ersus the role o "intelligent design" in ampiric e olution. These oddities pro ided just the sort o colour ul sidebars Bryant could drag into his con ersations, and as people tend to orgi e the elderly when they digress, I was able to use them in the ser ice o the plot.Ha ing inished the groundwork, I embarked on the actual writing. The Palace Theatre has steam engines powered by a tributary o the Ri er leet; I made a note.