Product Description

Books 4 and 5 in the light and witty Fethering Mystery series, with Carole and Jude investigating more crimes in seaside England. Simon Brett is a very dependable author, very well respected in the crime-writing world. The Fethering series (Body on the Beach, Death on the Downs, Torso in the Town) has proved successful so far, especially in hardback. Simon Brett worked as a radio and TV producer before taking up writing full-time. As well as the Fethering Mysteries series, he is also the author of the TV series After Henry, the radio series No Commitments and Smelling of Roses, and the best-selling How to Be a Little Sod. His novel A Shock to the System was filmed starring Michael Caine.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2540836 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04
• Format: Unabridged
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 6
• Binding: Audio Cassette

From Publishers Weekly
In Brett's fourth chatty, genteel Fethering mystery (after 2002's The Torso in the Town), Carole Seddon finds herself a member of the Bracketts Trust, which is responsible for the upkeep of Bracketts, former home of West Sussex litterateur Esmond Chadleigh. Tension arises between the Trust's new director, Gina Locke, who represents the new world of "management structures," and former trustee Sheila Cartwright, who's from the old school of local volunteers. While they wrangle over Bracketts's future, a skeleton turns up in the garden. Though it's obviously been there a long time, Sheila does her best to keep this disturbing find quiet. When a female American academic shows up to research a new biography of Chadleigh, she's stonewalled by the Trust's dawdling biographer-elect and grandson of the author, Graham Chadleigh-Bewes. Clearly something more than mere footnotes is being concealed. Eager to ferret out the truth, the uptight Carole is unable to rely on her usual partner-in-detection, the liberated Jude Nichols, since Jude is looking after a dying former lover. At times, subtle character interaction, at which Brett excels, threatens to take over the novel, but the mystery gathers steam after another, fresher body appears. Even Jude and lover have a part to play in its resolution, and Brett provides a shocking revelation or two at the end to bring a proper ending to a proper story.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The kitchen garden of a stately home in the Sussex village of Fethering is the final resting place for two bodies: one buried there during World War I and newly discovered; the other landing in the ground 90 years later, the result of a single gunshot. Brett delivers a deft mixture of history-mystery and contemporary thriller in this latest installment in his Fethering series starring the prickly, fiftysomething amateur sleuth, Carole Sedden, who is on site for the discovery of both bodies. Carole has been asked to serve on the board of trustees for a stately home once inhabited by one of the most famous Catholic poets of the Great War. Brett, who sends up backstage backbiting in his Charles Paris theatrical mysteries, applies the same caustic wit to the desperate gamesmanship of board meetings and village politics. The appearance of an American professor who wants to write a biography of the Catholic poet throws the board into a satisfyingly snide uproar. The contemporary murder is a feat of planning, a sort of mirror image of the locked-room puzzle in which the killing takes place in the open air, with Sedden walking right next to the victim. Another marvelous mix of social satire and traditional cozy. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
'A good, juicy, very English murder mystery' DAILY MAIL 'A crime novel in the traditional style, with delightful little touches of humour and vignettes of a small town and its bitchy inhabitants' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Customer Reviews

traditional whodunit
Simon Brett is the author of the Charles Paris series, the Mrs. Pargeter series and the Fethering mysteries. This is the fourth Fethering mystery that features Home Office retiree Carole Seddon. Fethering is a West Sussex seaside village. Most villages are quaint and quiet without much going on there. Fethering seems to get more than its share of murder. This time the action revolves around Brackett House which is the historical home of writer and poet Edmond Chadleigh. Carole has taken on the role of a trustee for Brackett House (the museum in the title). Tensions are high while trustees decide how to bring in some money to keep the museum afloat and also what to do about a proposed biography of Edmond Chadleigh. Before long a 90 year old skeleton is found in the garden, and shortly thereafter a murder takes place.

The Fethering series are very traditional cozy mysteries. Simon Brett has written a conventional, but entertaining whodunit. Broadly drawn quirky characters abound. It reminded me very much of the Agatha Christie Miss Marple books. Readers who want a light, witty, traditional mystery won?t go wrong with this one.

solid amateur sleuth
After a successful career in the Home Office, Carole Seddon retires to the seashore resort town of Fethering in West Sussex where she becomes friends with Jude, her next door neighbor. They partner up solving several local homicides. Carole has recently taken a volunteer position of trustee at Bracketts House, the home where the famous Catholic writer Esmond Chadleigh once lives. The property was turned into a heritage house and is in need of outside funding to keep on operating.

In the kitchen garden, a skeleton is found that dates back over seventy years. The find horrifies many of the trustees who don't want the author's named sullied. When Carole and Sheila Cartwright, the unofficial head of Bracketts House, are walking toward their cars after a trustee meeting, a shot rings out killing Sheila instantly. Carole believes there is a connection between the bodies found in the kitchen garden and Sheila's death and she is determined to find the common link knowing she may already be in danger.

Although Jude isn't working the investigation as much as usual because she is nursing a very sick friend, Carole picks up the slack and for once is not overshadowed by her best friend. She proves she can investigate a murder on her own and is able to subtly put the pieces together to figure out why the homicide occurred in the first place. Carole ferrets out the secrets and scandals of Bracketts house, which makes the heritage home more appealing to visitors and readers.

Harriet Klausner

Where's Charles?
Boo! These Fethering mysteries are way below par. What makes Brett's other work so great is the wit and polish of writing and the great characterization. Neither quality is apparent in this series. The two main characters are shallow stereotypes of the middle-class civil servant and the free spirit who have somehow come together over an interminable glass of white wine. To compare these to a Miss Marple is ludicrous. This one is particularly inane...the deep, dark family secret, the weak nephew, the vicious do-gooder, the ambitious administrator, the self-important bureaucrat, the unprincipled American academic (by the way, Americans do not pronounce "God" as "Gard"), the escaped convict and even the handicapped child! Please. Can we have more Charles Paris? Less white wine and more Bell's??