January 12, 2015
Brett’s lighthearted, fast-moving 16th Fethering whodunit (after 2014’s The Strangling on the Stage) takes Carole Seddon and her free-spirited friend, Jude Nichol, to Turkey, where an old flame of Jude’s, property developer Barney Willingdon, has offered Jude free use of a villa called Morning Glory. Carole, a stick-in-the-mud prone to falling into a “state of perpetual shudder” in unfamiliar situations, reluctantly agrees to go along. On their arrival at Morning Glory, they’re greeted by blood-red graffiti stating that they aren’t welcome and should remember what happened to Barney’s first wife, who died under ambiguous
circumstances. Shortly after this warning, a modern body turns up in an ancient tomb. Carole and Jude subsequently
discover that Barney has made lots of
enemies between his shady business deals and erratic romantic life. The comic interactions between the chalk-and-cheese pair of amateur sleuths more than compensate for a less-than-compelling mystery.
December 16, 2013
The world of amateur dramatics provides the backdrop for British author Brett’s witty and intelligent 15th Fethering mystery (after 2012’s The Corpse on the Court). During a rehearsal of George Bernard Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple, the body of actor Ritchie Good is found dangling from the gallows on stage at Fethering’s St. Mary’s Hall, after someone substituted a real noose for the Velcro one designed for the production. Could Ritchie have committed suicide? Was his death somehow an accident? Once the police lose interest in the case, the victim’s wife asks Carole Seddon and Jude Nichol to investigate. The two amateur detectives discover that members of the acting company, all engaged in petty intrigues, had good reason for wanting Ritchie dead. Amid a series of skillfully placed red herrings, the action builds to a resolution that will catch most readers by surprise. The motive when finally revealed is hilarious.
February 1, 2015
This latest installment in the Fethering series could show new readers why Brett, who has written more than 90 novels in all and won numerous awards, has had such a long and successful run. The Fethering series stars two women who live in the seaside village of Fethering in England. The two are unlikely but effective sleuths and even more unlikely friends: Carole Seddon is retired from the Home Office and fairly inhibited and neurotic, while Jude (no last name) works as a healer and is very loosey-goosey in her approach to just about everything. Now, in this sixth installment, Carole and Jude leave Carole's comfort zone at the offer of a free stay in a luxurious villa in Turkey. Once they get to the villa, they try to untwitch but are interrupted by threatening graffiti, advances from the property developer who offered them the villa, and, finally, by Carole's discovery of a recently dead body on the site of the region's ancient cliffside tombs. A nicely creepy mystery made even creepier by the setting, laced with the comedy of the two mismatched friends and Brett's acerbic wit.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)
January 15, 2015
Vacationing in Turkey, amateur sleuths Carole Seddon and Jude Nichol bring their unique combination of lightweight Fethering conflicts and murder most foul with them.Developer Barney Willingdon, one of Jude's many ex-lovers-not that she'd ever tell Carole-offers her and a friend the use of Morning Glory, his villa in Kayakoy, gratis any time before July. From the get-go, the two friends react very differently to this gift horse. Jude's eager to seize the day; Carole sits on the fence even as she scopes out websites for cheap airfares and pores over guidebooks and phrasebooks. Even before they leave England, they pick up hints that there may be a dark side to Barney's offer. His first wife, they learn, died in a suspicious accident; his relations with his second wife, Henry, are obviously strained; and he makes it clear that he's eager to find succor in Jude's arms once more. On arrival, the two are met by Barney's old friend, tour guide Nita Davies, who helps them settle in, gives them information about the village, tells them about her husband, Erkan, who's a scuba instructor, and then gets herself murdered. But when Carole, who discovers Nita's strangled corpse resting atop a tomb she's gone to visit, returns with Jude to show her what she's found, the body has vanished, and Barney, when the women ask about Nita, assures them she's gone back to England to visit the sick mother they learn died when she was 12. The sitcom humor is anodyne but gently effective. There are so few suspects that you'll spot the killer early on, unless of course you're Jude, preoccupied with the men staring at her cleavage, or Carole, checking to make sure she's remembered to take along her Imodium.
COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.