Death and the Decorator

by Simon Brett

Overview

Neighbours Carole and Jude uncover more than they bargained for when Jude decides to redecorate her cottage in this lighthearted cosy mystery.

"An edgy cozy, filled with dry wit and deft plot twists"- Booklist Starred Review

Having decided to redecorate Woodside Cottage, Jude has engaged the services of local man Pete, who has painted and decorated the homes of Fethering residents for many years. Pete is currently working on Footscrow House, a large Victorian building which is being converted into holiday flats by a local developer.

Having arranged to meet at 'Fiasco House', as it is known locally due to the many failed business enterprises over the years, Jude and Pete make a surprising discovery behind a wall panel: a woman's handbag! The casual discovery becomes serious when the police identify the handbag's owner as Anita Garner, a young woman who vanished in suspicious circumstances twenty years earlier.

Determined to find out what really happened to Anita all those years ago, Jude and her neighbour Carole's investigations plunge them into a maze of deception and murder, as they uncover a number of uncomfortable secrets beneath the serene surface of Fethering life . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781448309238
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	07/05/2022
Series:	Fethering Series , #21
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	165,478
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Simon Brett worked as a producer in radio and television before taking up writing full-time. The author of more than one hundred books, he was awarded an OBE in the 2016 New Year's Honours for services to Literature and also was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 2014 he won the CWA's prestigious Diamond Dagger for an outstanding body of work. He lives in a picturesque Sussex village.
Simon Brett worked as a producer in radio and television before taking up writing full-time. He was awarded an OBE in the 2016 New Year's Honours for services to Literature and also was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 2014 he won the CWA's prestigious Diamond Dagger for an outstanding body of work.

Editorial Reviews

05/02/2022

Early in Edgar finalist Brett’s lively 21st mystery set in the West Sussex town of Fethering (after 2021’s Guilt at the Garage), Jude Nichols, who works as a healer, drops by Footscrow House, a large Victorian mansion known locally as Fiasco House because nobody seems to be able to make money from it, to talk to her decorator, Pete, about the color choice for her sitting room. Pete is part of the team converting the building to holiday flats for a property developer. While Pete is demolishing a wall, he and Jude discover a handbag in the rubble, which belonged to Anita Garner, a young woman who went missing some 30 years earlier. Speculation about Garner’s whereabouts was considerable at the time, and her disappearance has remained one of Fethering’s great unsolved mysteries. When the town’s designated prime suspect is murdered, Jude and her prickly friend and neighbor, Carole Seddon, a retired civil servant, each using their own inimitable methods, investigate. As usual, Brett supplies plausible if eccentric characters, brisk dialogue, and a plot full of surprising twists and amusing detours. This is sprightly good fun. Agent: Lisa Moylett, CMM Agency (U.K.) (July)

Publishers Weekly

Brett is brilliant at showing how throwaway comments and casual snubs intensify cruelty to outsiders. This is an especially incisive Fethering adventure with a shocker of an ending

Booklist Starred Review of Guilt at the Garage

Ingeniously drawn characters, deft timing of twists, and a to-die-for climax. A stunner

Booklist Starred Review of The Killer in the Choir

An edgy cozy, filled with dry wit and deft plot twists

Booklist Starred Review

'An edgy cozy, filled with dry wit and deft plot twists’  – Booklist Starred Review

‘The familiar but still unlikely duo play to their strengths in this mannerly cozy’  – Kirkus Reviews

‘Brett is brilliant at showing how throwaway comments and casual snubs intensify cruelty to outsiders. This is an especially incisive Fethering adventure with a shocker of an ending'  – Booklist Starred Review of Guilt at the Garage

From the Publisher

2022-04-13
After coming upon a handbag hidden in a wall, a mismatched pair of women of a certain age seek the truth about what happened to the bag’s owner in the insular British town of Fethering.

Footscrow House is being revamped once again in another incarnation. The seemingly doomed manse locals have dubbed Fiasco House because it’s been the site of many unsuccessful ventures is being converted into holiday flats. Bohemian healer Jude is less interested in the reno than in engaging the project’s painter and decorator, Pete, to help redecorate Woodside Cottage, her own home. While she’s meeting with Pete at the Fiasco House site, the two discover a handbag hidden within the walls of the house. A passport in the bag suggests that it belongs to an Anita Garner. Jude, who knows a woman would never willingly leave her bag, feels an immediate kinship with the bag’s owner, who vanished without a trace more than 20 years ago. Jude consults her neighbor and partner in investigating, Carole Seddon, in search of further insight. Jude’s outside-the-box perspective and Carole’s old-fashioned doggedness make them a chalk-and-cheese team with a history of resolving other local mysteries. According to town gossip, Anita’s disappearance may have coincided with some impropriety relating to male attention, likely from someone still in town. Though longtime residents close ranks to stymie Jude and Carole in their pursuit of the truth, the surprising death of someone who might have known more spurs their investigation.

The familiar but still unlikely duo play to their strengths in this mannerly cozy.

Kirkus Reviews