Publishers Weekly
05/02/2022
Early in Edgar finalist Brett’s lively 21st mystery set in the West Sussex town of Fethering (after 2021’s Guilt at the Garage), Jude Nichols, who works as a healer, drops by Footscrow House, a large Victorian mansion known locally as Fiasco House because nobody seems to be able to make money from it, to talk to her decorator, Pete, about the color choice for her sitting room. Pete is part of the team converting the building to holiday flats for a property developer. While Pete is demolishing a wall, he and Jude discover a handbag in the rubble, which belonged to Anita Garner, a young woman who went missing some 30 years earlier. Speculation about Garner’s whereabouts was considerable at the time, and her disappearance has remained one of Fethering’s great unsolved mysteries. When the town’s designated prime suspect is murdered, Jude and her prickly friend and neighbor, Carole Seddon, a retired civil servant, each using their own inimitable methods, investigate. As usual, Brett supplies plausible if eccentric characters, brisk dialogue, and a plot full of surprising twists and amusing detours. This is sprightly good fun. Agent: Lisa Moylett, CMM Agency (U.K.) (July)
Booklist Starred Review of Guilt at the Garage
Brett is brilliant at showing how throwaway comments and casual snubs intensify cruelty to outsiders. This is an especially incisive Fethering adventure with a shocker of an ending
Booklist Starred Review
An edgy cozy, filled with dry wit and deft plot twists
Booklist Starred Review of The Killer in the Choir
Ingeniously drawn characters, deft timing of twists, and a to-die-for climax. A stunner
From the Publisher
'An edgy cozy, filled with dry wit and deft plot twists’ – Booklist Starred Review
‘The familiar but still unlikely duo play to their strengths in this mannerly cozy’ – Kirkus Reviews
‘Brett is brilliant at showing how throwaway comments and casual snubs intensify cruelty to outsiders. This is an especially incisive Fethering adventure with a shocker of an ending' – Booklist Starred Review of Guilt at the Garage
Kirkus Reviews
2022-04-13
After coming upon a handbag hidden in a wall, a mismatched pair of women of a certain age seek the truth about what happened to the bag’s owner in the insular British town of Fethering.
Footscrow House is being revamped once again in another incarnation. The seemingly doomed manse locals have dubbed Fiasco House because it’s been the site of many unsuccessful ventures is being converted into holiday flats. Bohemian healer Jude is less interested in the reno than in engaging the project’s painter and decorator, Pete, to help redecorate Woodside Cottage, her own home. While she’s meeting with Pete at the Fiasco House site, the two discover a handbag hidden within the walls of the house. A passport in the bag suggests that it belongs to an Anita Garner. Jude, who knows a woman would never willingly leave her bag, feels an immediate kinship with the bag’s owner, who vanished without a trace more than 20 years ago. Jude consults her neighbor and partner in investigating, Carole Seddon, in search of further insight. Jude’s outside-the-box perspective and Carole’s old-fashioned doggedness make them a chalk-and-cheese team with a history of resolving other local mysteries. According to town gossip, Anita’s disappearance may have coincided with some impropriety relating to male attention, likely from someone still in town. Though longtime residents close ranks to stymie Jude and Carole in their pursuit of the truth, the surprising death of someone who might have known more spurs their investigation.
The familiar but still unlikely duo play to their strengths in this mannerly cozy.
