Guns in the Gallery (A Fethering Mystery, 13) - Hardcover

Brett, Simon

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1780290152 ISBN 13: 9781780290157

Publisher: Severn House, 2012

Synopsis

A new Simon Brett is an event for mystery fans - Invited to a Private View of the work of controversial artist Denzil Willoughby, the good citizens of Fethering are not quite sure what to expect. And it turns out to be a lively affair, culminating in several embarrassing confrontations. But what no one could have anticipated was that the evening would end in sudden, violent death. The police seem happy to accept that it was suicide, but Fethering residents Carole and Jude remain unconvinced . . .

About this title

About the Author

Simon Brett worked as a producer in radio and television before taking up writing full-time. He is the author of the much-loved Fethering mysteries, Charles Paris series and the Mrs Pargeter novels. In 2014 he was awarded the Crime Writers' Association's prestigious Diamond Dagger for sustained excellence and contribution to crime writing, and in 2016 was awarded an OBE for his services to literature. He lives in an Agatha Christie-style village in the South Downs.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Brett picks a perfect spot for his trademark blend of social satire and cozy mystery: an art gallery positioned on the High Street of the West Sussex village of Fethering. The gallery is giving a“Private View” showing of a controversial artist who uses guns and ammo for shock value. The showing draws a Restoration comedy’s worth of characters from different worlds—artists, socialites, would-be artists and socialites, members of the middle and upper-middle classes of Fethering, and the workers who set it all up. At the showing, the twentysomething daughter of a nouveau riche couple lashes out at the artist, once her lover, and is later found dead. Since the young woman had a history of depression, her slashed wrists are seen by police as a suicide method. Enter Brett’s avocational detective duo, Jude and Carole (Jude is a New Age healer, Carole an uptight, retired Home Office worker), who sense that the dead woman was murdered. Brett expands the action from Fethering to a lavish country house to an artist’s studio in London. As always, he pinions pretension perfectly—perhaps the most shocking detail in a mystery full of shocks is how the nouveau riche parents try to cover up any investigation of their daughter’s death, so it won’t interrupt their social climbing and the opening of their other daughter’s “glamping” (glamorous camping) site. Readers of the Fethering series get both another distinctive cozy and a wonderful narrative arc tracing Jude and Carole’s relationship and, especially, Carole’s gradual thawing. Brilliant, biting, and fun. --Connie Fletcher

About this edition

• Publisher: Severn House
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1780290152
• ISBN 13: 9781780290157
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224