Simon Brett

Reviewed on 12th April 2025

Carole and Jude get to spend some time in a neighbouring town when Carole decides to take on a beach hut to entertain her granddaughter, not realise its history will provide two mysteries for the perfectly mismatched neighbours to solve.

I enjoy these as very relaxed, low pressure comedy, mystery novels. There’s an element with this one of the crimes in question being possibly more horrific than the series tends to go for, but it’s still kept at fairly arm’s length.

There are perhaps some slightly more political discussions about some of the crimes than usual, and I didn’t find all of the resolutions very satisfying. It leaves a bit of a bitter taste at the end which disappointed me and I felt spoiled what was otherwise a nice visit to Fethering.

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Reviewed on 1st June 2024

A quick return to Fethering was really relaxing, and I raced through this mystery in two days - it was just what I was looking for in a book.

It’s Christmas, and Carole is really trying to join in and make it more enjoyable than her usual lack of festivities, but really she’s motivated most by trying to solve yet another local murder.

I really enjoy these characters and their little world. We got a few reminders pop in of previous adventures and friends, but mostly this is a new story with new suspects and a new plot.

I’m not entirely sure I understood the conclusion, but I don’t think that mattered too much, as the journey was what was important to me.

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Reviewed on 24th December 2022

Book 10 in Fethering sees us revisit a growing cast of familiar characters, who are out for lunch at the pub when disaster strikes.

I was looking for something light after some heftier novels, and this fit the bill perfectly. Crimes are much better to read about when you are aligned with a couple of random middle-aged ladies rather than the police or the criminal.

Nice relaxing fare. Only at the very end did I finally feel I was a step ahead of the characters.

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Reviewed on 19th December 2021

Back to the seaside town of Fethering we go, to find nobody particularly suspicious that there’s been another in a complex series of unrelated murders that the local police can’t solve, and so two armchair detectives must step in.

It’s another great tale pulling a range of characters that seem typical of modern village life and tying their lives together in interesting ways that make for humour, must yet, and an enjoyable read.

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Reviewed on 16th August 2020

I’ve found the previous novels in this series very relaxing to read, and Death Under The Dryer continues this trend. While set in the modern era, it continues the spirit of the classic mystery novel, with a casual attitude and relaxed mildly comedic turn to the characters and their relationships.

This time out, our two amateur detectives find themselves on the scene when a murder is discovered, and surrounded throughout my new characters who are richly varied and live the complex intertwined lives that are necessary for this sort of plot.

The normalcy of the lives of Brett’s characters make for very chilled reading - which is something I really appreciate in a novel at the moment. Exactly what I was looking for.

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Reviewed on 2nd February 2020

Slowly making my way through this series, I find myself at book 7, in which amateur sleuths Carole and Jude accidentally find themselves discovering the body of a stabbed stable owner, and becoming once again drawn into a murder investigation in the surprisingly deadly Sussex countryside.

As usual it’s the classic set-up - many suspects, all of whom seem to have something to hide, and problematic relationships with one another, and the detective work of the starring duo is top class.

The guest characters are richly painted - possibly the best set yet - and make the world of the novel more colourful and fun to read. The ongoing lives of the main characters are also slowly teased out a bit further, piquing the interest of the reader and tempting me to continue on to the next book.

A good, simple adventure that’s modern yet reminiscent of the mysteries of yesteryear - just the sort of crime novel I feel comfortable with.

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Reviewed on 23rd January 2019

After what feels like a couple of years I finally found this, the next book in the Fethering series - and dived back into the comfortable lives of Carole and Jude. Carole’s son is getting married - injecting a fun element of soap opera to the plot - but there are murderous goings-on amongst his future in-laws which Carole feels compelled to get to the bottom of.

Comfortable is definitely the right word for this book. Its familiarity makes for a relaxing read, and Brett manages to find new ways to take the classic murder mystery and make it really fun.

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