Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #229869 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 361 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The popular and prolific Brett takes us into the world of cut, color and curl in his witty eighth Fethering cozy (after 2006's The Stabbing in the Stables). Carole Seddon needs a haircut: exactly the same, just shorter. She risks going to a salon in her small English town of Fethering, only to witness the discovery of the assistant, Kyra, strangled in the back room with evidence of a tryst all around her. When Kyra's secret boyfriend, Nathan, becomes the suspect, but his parents aren't worried, Carole decides the local constabulary needs help from her and her next-door neighbor and sleuthing partner, Jude. Brett perfectly describes the mannerisms of stuffy upper-middle-class Carole slowly letting her hair down; the odd, arty insouciance of Nathan's academic family; and anyone else who comes within range. This funny and intricately plotted story brims with affection for the affectations of our favorite Fethering friends. (Aug.)
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From Booklist
Brett is a master of satiric social commentary. His brilliant Charles Paris mysteries dissected the backbiting world of TV, radio, and stage. His current run of cozies set in the quiet West Sussex village of Fethering sometimes suffers from fustiness but still is strong on Brett's forte of skewering social pretensions. In the latest Fethering, the stage set is a hair salon, which Brett reveals as part psychotherapist's office and part cabaret. A young salon assistant is found strangled to death with the cord of a hair dryer in a High Street salon. Fortuitously, Carole Seddon (a fiftyish retiree from the Home Office with a penchant for stumbling onto murders and then solving them with her neighbor Jude, a New Agey, blowsy type) comes in for a cut and leaves with a mystery. The duo pursues leads from Fethering to Cornwall. The plot meanders, but Brett's scathing asides are worth it. Fletcher, Connie

Review
"Murder most enjoyable...an author who never takes himself that seriously, and for whom any fictional murder can frequently form part of the entertainment industry."

Customer Reviews

Great narration
In Fethering, England Carole Seddon decides she needs a bit cut off from her hair so she enters Connie's Clip Joint in spite of her trepidations about allowing a local to come near her ears with a scissor. However, she takes a chance because Carole just wants a bit of a snip not a change in her style. To her regret, she finds the corpse of clip joint employee Kyra strangled by a garrote in the salon's back room with evidence that a sexual encounter occurred also.

Thus the Littlehampton police station major crime detectives assume Kyra's kept secret boyfriend (until now), Nathan killed her. Carole assumes that the cops she met are boobs so they need her London based Home office expert assistance on the investigation. She and her reluctant partner Jude make inquiries that annoy the local police as she keeps interfering with their inquiry.

The police procedural is well written and cleverly designed as is the private investigation by Carole and Jude. However, what makes Simon Brett's whodunit so much fun is the amusing dysfunctional relationship between the haughty know it all Carole and the Fethering locals. Twelve championship rounds later Carole has been snipped, nipped and dipped so that she has become localized. Fans will appreciate the latest Fethering caper (see THE BODY ON THE BEACH and THE STABBING IN THE STABLES).

Harriet Klausner

Brett on Top Form
Here we are with another instalment of the Carole and Jude adventures. These two ladies while away their "quiet" retirement on the south coast of England solving murder mysteries.

I think the great strength of this series is the interaction between the stuffy, formal, ex civil servant Carole and the free spirited, former model, amongst other things, Jude. They make quite a team.

Here with another beautifully crafted adventure lifting the lid on the hair and beauty salon world. And what a wonderful, yet eccentric range of characters we meet: people like The Locke family, who seem to live in a role playing game of their own design, a retired songwriter and his bossy wife and the hairdressers themselves. Just who would have a motive to murder the young assistant?

As usual Carole and Jude have to use their own skills and talents to solve the mystery. There are lots of lovely interactions with suspects. Jude is at her flirtatious best and Carole is a no nonsense as ever.

A great way to while away a winter evening enjoying the gentle yet sharp humour of Simon Brett.

Death Under the Dryer
This was not Simon Brett at his best. Character development was not as strong nor was the plot. The mystery was week and I missed the development of a greater insight into Jude and Carol. I am a fan of this duo and want more about them in each book as he has done before.