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Simon Brett is a well known British mystery novelist, television writer, and humorous speaker. He has written dozens of light-hearted mysteries in several series: first the actor Charles Paris stories; then the Mrs. Pargeter series, featuring the genteel widow of a well-rounded crook; and now the Fethering mysteries, featuring two women in their fifties, Carole, a retired Home Office employee, rather sedate but inquisitive, and Jude, her vivacious friend and neighbor in the West Sussex village of Fethering, whose past (and even some of her present) is much more mysterious, but who shares Carole's curiosity, especially when it comes to murder. While walking the downs in nearby Weldisham, Carole discovers some bones in an old barn. She reports this fact to the police, who treat the discovery as murder, and she starts meeting some of the town's inhabitants in the local pub. Brett uses the opportunity to share his views with his readers on such topics as the metamorphosis of small villages with rich city dwellers buying up the homes; on the snootiness found in such villages of the new class of people, as well as the old-timers rich enough to still afford housing in the place where they were born and/or raised; and on the mass-produced pub ambience and menus that are gradually supplanting the traditional individual pub. Carole uses her entree to the homes of her new-found Weldisham acquaintances to carry on subtle and not-so-subtle interrogations aimed at getting to the heart of the mystery. Jude, who already knows some of the locals, tries to find out whose bones they were, especially concentrating on the local view that they had to be the bones of a missing young woman, Tamsin, who believed in New Age healers. Carole finds herself charmed by a retired British Council official, unwantingly pursued by a most boring lawyer, consulted by a police detective working on the case, and threatened by a weird would-be writer. Jude learns that Tamsin is not dead, but is hiding in fear of her life in a nearby manor run by a practitioner of New Age alternative medicine. Another murder occurs when the mother of the weirdo dies in a fire. By this time Carole has a theory on who the murderer is and how the first murder was done. But now she finds herself in fear for her own life. Brett has an easy way of writing and gives a good picture on what it's like to visit the downs, which are at once both beautiful and dangerous. The book is the type that one reads more for relaxation than ratiocination. It has solid merits, but I also found some weaknesses that perhaps would not bother other readers. For one thing, I felt the body of the crime was 90 per cent solved too early, and I was induced to continue reading mainly to see how the author would get around a big obstacle to that solution. When the obstacle was removed, I didn't care for the way it was done, but I dare not say more for fear of spoiling the story for others. I recommend the story to anyone who want some light, cozy reading. It is not far removed from an Agatha Christie type of mystery brought up to modern times.
Reviewed by Eugene Aubrey Stratton, September 2002
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