RogerBW's Blog

The Shooting in the Shop, Simon Brett 26 August 2014

Eleventh in Brett's Fethering Mysteries series (amateur sleuthing). A local bric-a-brac shop is burned down, but the body found inside it was shot first. Carole Seddon and Jude investigate again.

But first there's Christmas to get through, and this section is Carole's in a way we haven't seen since The Hanging in the Hotel (fifth in the series). All too often she's the butt of Brett's jokes as narrator, but this time, admittedly because of the forcible loosening-up she's experienced over the course of the various murders she's encountered and her experiences with Jude, she does manage to function like a decent approximation of a human being, having her son and family over for Christmas lunch and keeping her ex-husband from horning in. (Yes, all right, if you haven't read previous volumes you won't grasp just how much of a step that is for her.)

As for the secondary characters who give this series its legs, there's a superannuated Svengali from the Sixties who's more talked-about than on-stage, an old boy living in a beach hut, and a seriously deluded ageing hippy, among others. The only returning characters are Carole's family, though there's occasional mention of people from earlier books in the series.

The mystery? Well, it's there, I suppose, but it's ten chapters before anything illegal happens, and as usual with this series it's not much of an exercise in deduction. Some clues are laid down with all the subtlety of a T-72, and there was even a moment when I wanted, presumably with the author's connivance, to shout "you are leaping to a conclusion that is not supported by the data". In this particular case, to solve the mystery and pin the blame in the right place would take several leaps well outside the evidence we're given; the last-minute confession is a bit of a cliché, but it emphasises here just how little admissible evidence there is.

Better than the previous volume, but still mind-candy reading rather than any sort of serious mental exercise. Not for serious cerebral mystery fans. While I've read this series from the beginning and would recommend that others do likewise, I think the new reader shouldn't feel lost here.

Followed by Bones Under the Beach Hut.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Previous in series: The Poisoning in the Pub | Series: Fethering Mysteries | Next in series: Bones under the Beach Hut

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1