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Simon Brett Omnibus Volume 1
(2001)(A book in the Charles Paris series)
An omnibus of novels by Simon Brett
Cast, in Order of Disappearance
Who killed Marius Steen, the theatrical tycoon with a fortune to leave to his young mistress Jacqui? And who killed Bill Sweet, the shady blackmailer with a supply of compromising photographs? Charles Paris, a middle-aged actor, who keeps going on booze and women, takes to detection by assuming a variety of roles including that of a Scotland Yard Detective-Sergeant. The results are both comic and dramatic. As the mythical McWirther of the Yard, he actually precipitates the crime; as one of the blackmailer's victims he finds himself in bed with the blackmailer's wife; as a small part player in a horror film (The Zombie Walks), he gets shot at by the murderer. And he arrives at the solution by way of the petrol crisis and an abortive attack of German measles.
So much Blood
The second story takes Charles to the fringe show at the Edinburgh Festival where another nubile girl provokes him, his wife consoles him and a gory murder challenges him. Edinburgh and the Festival are both background and foreground, with Charles flitting between a 'revisualised' Midsummer Night's Dream, a 'mixed-media' satire, a late-night revue, and his own one-man show on Thomas Hood - and with a fading pop star as the first victim, a bomb scare in Holyrood Palace and a suicide leap from the top of the Rock. Charles copes splendidly with the Festival, with his affair with the girl with the navy blue eyes, and with a most complex murder investigation. Of the ingenious solution we will say only one thing: that Thomas Hood can provide the vital clue, in 'The Dream of Eugene Aram'. Both stories are light-hearted frolics but at the same time beautifully ingenious puzzles buzzing with fun and wit.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Who killed Marius Steen, the theatrical tycoon with a fortune to leave to his young mistress Jacqui? And who killed Bill Sweet, the shady blackmailer with a supply of compromising photographs? Charles Paris, a middle-aged actor, who keeps going on booze and women, takes to detection by assuming a variety of roles including that of a Scotland Yard Detective-Sergeant. The results are both comic and dramatic. As the mythical McWirther of the Yard, he actually precipitates the crime; as one of the blackmailer's victims he finds himself in bed with the blackmailer's wife; as a small part player in a horror film (The Zombie Walks), he gets shot at by the murderer. And he arrives at the solution by way of the petrol crisis and an abortive attack of German measles.
So much Blood
The second story takes Charles to the fringe show at the Edinburgh Festival where another nubile girl provokes him, his wife consoles him and a gory murder challenges him. Edinburgh and the Festival are both background and foreground, with Charles flitting between a 'revisualised' Midsummer Night's Dream, a 'mixed-media' satire, a late-night revue, and his own one-man show on Thomas Hood - and with a fading pop star as the first victim, a bomb scare in Holyrood Palace and a suicide leap from the top of the Rock. Charles copes splendidly with the Festival, with his affair with the girl with the navy blue eyes, and with a most complex murder investigation. Of the ingenious solution we will say only one thing: that Thomas Hood can provide the vital clue, in 'The Dream of Eugene Aram'. Both stories are light-hearted frolics but at the same time beautifully ingenious puzzles buzzing with fun and wit.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
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Used availability for Simon Brett's Simon Brett Omnibus Volume 1