Simon Brett

Soul searching was an unfamiliar exercise to Bill Stratton, and he found it intriguing as well as painful. He hadn't had much occasion for it in his life, given that he was fairly shallow, but then, on the verge of his sixtieth birthday, his wife told him she was leaving him for another man. He'd been under the impression they had a happy marriage. She assured him that for nearly forty years, in fact since the second week of their honeymoon, she'd...

The wickedly entertaining new Fethering mystery featuring chalk-and-cheese detective duo Carole and Jude Polly's Cake Shop has been a feature of the shopping parade for many years, but when its owner announces her retirement, the Fethering residents start to worry about the loss of this popular amenity. Alarmed by rumours that the café might become a Starbucks, a group clubs together to form the Save Polly's Cake Shop Action Committee. The plan is...

Madeleine Severn is a tutor at the Garrettway School of Languages, she has a young outlook on life, and is proud of her looks. Eighteen-year-old student Paul Grigson idolises Madeleine and during a date of his own he sees Madeleine with the married Bernard Hopkins. When Bernard arranges to meet Madeleine again, he feels jealous, but like most teenagers, Paul's moods change like a chameleon's. This is a romantic triangle surely destined for disaster...

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 . ....

For once Charles Paris is gainfully employed in the role of Sergeant Clump in what promises to be a long-running TV series based on rather dated 1930s detective novels. Yet once again, Charles finds himself in the role of real-life detective when he discovers a young actress's body crushed beneath a props case, and sets out to prove his hunch that she was murdered.

Appearing in his own one-man show on Thomas Hood at the Edinburgh Festival, middle-aged actor Charles Paris finds himself falling for a gorgeous young girl with navy-blue eyes. He also finds himself being dragged into a complex murder investigation involving the death of a fading pop star, a bomb scare in Holyrood Palace and a suicide leap from the top of the Rock.

When Jude agrees to lend her vintage chaise lounge for the local Amateur Dramatics Society's production of George Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple, little does she realize she'll end up in a starring role. It's an ambitious play, culminating in a dramatic execution scene: a scene that's played for real when one of the leading actors is found hanging from the especially-constructed stage gallows during rehearsals. A tragic accident - or something...

During a period of 'resting', actor Charles Paris takes on a job as a house painter. Arriving for work at the flat above a fashionable Holland Park restaurant, he discovers the mutilated body of chef Yves Lafeu. It would appear to be an open-and-shut case. Yves' business partner Tristram Gowers caught the night boat to France within hours of a spectacular public quarrel with Yves, and has now disappeared. But is there more to it than that? Charles...

Ten years since it was first published in hardback, and now for the first time as an eBook, this volume of short stories by the cream of British crime writing talent celebrates 75 years of the quintessential Detection Club. The Detection Club represents the cream of British crime writing talent. Founded on the cusp of the 1930s, the Club's first President was G.K. Chesterton, and since then the mantle of Presidency has passed to some of the most significant...