Worthless Remains

by Peter Helton

Overview

Chris Honeysett’s latest assignment – babysitting TV archaeologist Guy Middleton during filming at an aging rock star’s mansion near Bath – seems straightforward enough. It turns out to be anything but. While his brief is to protect Guy from over-eager fans, when the TV presenter starts to receive threatening letters and spiked drinks, Honeysett realizes that there’s a lot more to this job than he’d been led to believe. As the menacing incidents escalate in intensity, it becomes clear that someone intends Guy Middleton serious harm. With his highhanded ways and less-than-professional attitude, the presenter has annoyed a lot of people. But who would hate him enough to try to kill him?

Meanwhile the archaeological dig unearths some unexpected findings: it’s not only Roman remains that are buried in the mansion’s grounds …

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780727893024
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	12/29/2017
Series:	A Chris Honeysett Mystery , #5
Edition description:	Large Print
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Born in Germany, Peter Helton now lives in Bath, Somerset. He has a Fine Art degree, and paints and exhibits regularly in London, Cornwall and Bath, writing in his spare time. As well as the Chris Honeysett mystery series, he is the author of the DI Liam McLusky series.

Editorial Reviews

This is a humorous cozy with an entertaining plot and a quirky cast: Agatha Christie with characters from Monty Python. Good fun.

Booklist

Helton’s diverting fifth Chris Honeysett mystery (after 2012’s An Inch of Time, 2012) finds Honeysett, a painter and PI, ensconced at Mill House, a rural retreat outside the city of Bath, with two overweight sheep and his girlfriend, Annis Jordan. For Honeysett, Jordan only counts as “half a girl,” since she’s also dating his partner in Aqua Investigations, ex-safecracker Tim Bigwood, not that anyone involved minds. Simon Paris, Honeysett’s gallerist in Bath and London, does mind that his client has switched his painting style from abstract to realistic. Honeysett is worried about all the bills the postman keeps delivering—which is why he ends up accepting a job looking after haughty, self-involved Guy Middleton, the presenter of an archeology TV program, who has been receiving a spate of chilling death threats. Some readers may feel Helton strains too hard at times for humorous effect, but Anglophiles should be satisfied with his close attention to the subtleties of British culture—and cookery in particular. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

This is a humorous cozy with an entertaining plot and a quirky cast: Agatha Christie with characters from Monty Python. Good fun.

Booklist

" Helton’s hero has a biting wit."
Kirkus Reviews  on Worthless Remains

“This is a humorous cozy with an entertaining plot and a quirky cast: Agatha Christie with characters from Monty Python. Good fun.”
Booklist on Worthless Remains

From the Publisher

2013-08-15
An artist/investigator hired for private security on a television set wonders whether the star is really in danger or just being dramatic. Security isn't really Chris Honeysett's main gig. He's more of an artist than anything else. But a move away from abstract paintings has temporarily turned away his last patron. So Chris is open to doing any job to survive. When the star of Time Lines, TV archaeologist Guy Middleton, requests Chris to handle personal security for Guy's latest episode, Chris' girlfriend, Annis, brokers Chris a great fee to serve on what should be a low-key set in Bath, England. The cast and crew of Time Lines are set up in retired rocker Mark Stoneking's mansion for filming, and Chris anticipates a quick and easy check--that is, until he gets to know Guy a bit better. Not only is Guy convinced that someone is out to get him, the more Chris comes to know him, the less he's surprised that someone would want to attack the sour star. If only the danger were all in Guy's mind. A few unlikely coincidences convince Chris that there may indeed be trouble afoot. Now he must protect the high-maintenance star on an archaeology dig where someone intends to make Guy history. Helton's hero (An Inch of Time, 2012, etc.) has a biting wit. If only his supporting characters had the same amount to contribute to the story.

Kirkus Reviews