Death on the Downs Lib/E

Review "As in Agatha Christie mysteries, the characters are larger than life, but all the clues are provided to help the reader feel part of the puzzle-solving process. Simon Brett has a good track record...He's onto another winner with the Fethering mysteries."-- "Birmingham Evening Mail"Brett is off again on a marvelous send-up of contemporary British society...mixed with the kind of writing that makes you want both to savor the prose slowly and to turn the page quickly to find out what twist lies ahead.-- "Booklist (starred review)"Few crime writers are as enchantingly gifted...as Simon Brett...[He] writes in an amused satiric style.-- "Sunday Times (London)"Like all the best English whodunits, this murder mystery is set in one of those old Home Counties villages where everything looks immaculate on the outside but old secrets have been simmering. Beautifully plotted, with a sharp eye for the social comedy of middle-class middle England.-- "Daily Mail (London)"Mr. Brett's light touch produces an enjoyable mystery.-- "Sunday Telegraph (London)"There's something special about well-written British mysteries, and Simon Brett's Death on the Downs is special, indeed.-- "Milwaukee Journal Sentinel" Product Description It wasn't the rain that upset Carole Seddon during her walk on the West Sussex Downs, nor was it the dilapidated barn in which she sought shelter. What upset her was the human skeleton she discovered there, neatly packed into two blue fertilizer bags.Thus begins the mystery for strait-laced Carole and her more laid-back neighbor Jude, whose investigation takes them to the small hamlet of Weldisham. There gossips quickly identify the corpse as Tamsin Lutteridge, a young woman who disappeared from the village months before, after becoming involved with several practitioners of alternative medicine. But Detective Sergeant Baylis will confirm nothing, and Tamsin's mother is adamant that her daughter is still alive. Others believe a serial killer is on the loose. As Jude sets out to find Tamsin-either dead or alive-Carole digs deeper into Weldisham's history and the bitter relationships simmering beneath the village's gentle facade. About the Author Simon Brett worked as a producer with BBC radio before turning to writing full time. A former president of Britain's Crime Writers Association, he is the creator of the Mrs. Pargeter mysteries and the Charles Paris series as well as the Fethering mysteries. He lives in southern England with his family.Ralph Cosham (1936-2014), a.k.a. Geoffrey Howard, was a British journalist who changed careers to become a narrator and screen and stage actor. He performed in more than one hundred professional theatrical roles, and several of his narrations were named Audio Best of the Year by Publishers Weekly. He won seven AudioFile Earphones Awards, and in 2013 he won the coveted Audie Award for Best Mystery Narration for his reading of Louise Penny's The Beautiful Mystery. From AudioFile Caught in a rainstorm while on a solitary stroll on the West Sussex Downs, Carole Seddon takes refuge in a dilapidated barn, where she discovers human remains packed inside a pair of blue fertilizer bags. Together with her free-spirited friend, Jude, Carole sets out to solve the mystery of the bones. Their quest takes them to various Weldisham pubs, to the home of a missing teen, and to a New Age health retreat, as the pair sift through village gossip and local history to find the identity of the body and discover how it got there. With a largely female cast, it's surprising that DEATH ON THE DOWNS is read by a man. But Geoffrey Howard gives a sensitive reading to Brett's novel, the second in his Fethering series, resulting in a mystery as riveting as it is charming. S.E.S. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine