A Reconstructed Corpse

While playing the part of missing property developer Martin Earnshaw on "Public Enemies," a true-crime television series, actor-sleuth Charles Paris begins to uncover the shocking truth about the missing man's disappearance

In less skillful hands the premise for Brett's Charles Paris series might, by now (the 15th entry), be wearing dangerously thin. Each time out, Charles has posed as an unsuccessful actor, yet he seems always to have a paying gig of sorts. No matter. Brett is a master of the English cozy, comfortable, witty and sympathetic to his hero's plight. To pay the rent and keep himself in Bell's Whisky, Charles plays a missing man on a popular telly show where real crimes are re-created to entertain and to aid ongoing investigations. The author spends less time with obvious suspects than with the egos assembled behind the cameras, and in uniform: a dictatorial producer, the scared minions in his employ, and a pretty and ambitious policewoman whose former lover, a private investigator, left Scotland Yard under a cloud of suspicion. As always, Charles is endlessly inquisitive, especially when the arms of the real missing man are found in a fresh grave, and the likely widow, a willowy and temptingly photogenic woman named Chloe, seems to bask in her newfound celebrity. Once again Charles, last encountered in Corporate Bodies , is better at sleuthing than emoting, much to readers' continuing benefit.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Finally, a role within Charles Paris's limited histrionic range: missing, presumed dead, in the character of Martin Earnshaw, a small-time property developer who got in too deep to a loan shark, stepped out one night for a drink, and never came back. Sleazy TV producer Bob Garston, ever alert for the audience's lowest instincts, hires Charles as an extra to impersonate Earnshaw in reconstructed scenes from the last hours of his life for Public Enemies, his true-crime show. Meantime, another sort of reconstruction--spurred perhaps by the rivalry between glamorous, amorous police consultant Sam Noakes and private investigator Ted Faraday, her current lover--gets underway when arms and legs that might have been Earnshaw's begin turning up just in time to make the weekly TV broadcasts. One evening after taping, Charles absent- mindedly follows Noakes's former lover Sergeant Greg Marchmont to a suspicious flat in Brighton--and right into the eye of the storm. Pleasantly urbane as ever, though Charles (Corporate Bodies, 1992, etc.) is unwontedly subdued and the mystery pretty transparent. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Charles Paris is droll, self-deprecating, semialcoholic, and an astoundingly mediocre actor ("Also appearing was Charles Paris . . ."). Fortunately, his quintessentially British stiff upper lip and his ever-handy bottle of Bell's whiskey help him get through the bad times. But Charles' agent has just called with some exciting news: Charles' uncanny resemblance to Brighton property developer Martin Earnshaw, who has mysteriously disappeared after leaving home to visit the local pub, has landed Charles a job reconstructing Earnshaw's "last moments" on the television program Public Enemies. As usual, Charles can't stop getting involved in a bit of amateur detecting, especially after the grisly discovery of a pair of unattached arms identified by Earnshaw's beautiful wife as having been attached at one time to her husband. Brett has the lugubriously witty Paris and his entertaining escapades down to a fine science, and while his stories won't be mistaken for fast-paced action thrillers, they are nevertheless clever, witty, amusing, and pleasantly diverting. An alternate selection of the Mystery Guild. Emily Melton