Fethering Mystery

Recently retired, Carole Seddon resides in the seaside hamlet of Fethering, in the cottage she purchased with her ex-husband. There she maintains a quiet and sensible life with the companionship of Gulliver, her Labrador retriever. But everything changes when she and Gulliver find a corpse on the beach while taking their daily constitutional. What's more, there are two wounds on its neck. The body mysteriously disappears and the police dismiss Carole as a befuddled middle-aged woman. She almost starts to believe it herself-until a stranger threatens her to keep quiet or else. Unable to contain her anxiety, Carole confides in her eccentric neighbor, Jude, who suggests that if the police cannot be bothered to catch a killer, maybe they should do it themselves.

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 façade.

A dinner party at an English mansion with some stuffy, not-very-close friends is not exactly Jude's cup of tea-but the practically mummified torso of a woman found in the cellar is right up her alley. There is no way of knowing how long the dead body has been there, or even who it once was. Intrigued by this new mystery, Jude elicits the help of her reluctant neighbor, Carole, to help solve the case. And perhaps in the process she can snap Carole out of her growing depression, the result of a recently failed relationship. Their detective work soon uncovers that Pelling House's previous owners include two divorced couples who harbor a lot of resentment-and Jude and Carole suspect that they may be harboring some dark secrets as well. Once again, the two middle-aged women from Fethering find themselves embroiled in a puzzling whodunit.

Carole Seddon and her bohemian neighbor Jude find that even the cultured can be crass when it comes to murder. The life of Esmond Chadleigh, noted poet and children's author, is celebrated in the halls of Bracketts House. Nevertheless, most of Chadleigh's work remains out of print, which leaves Bracketts House out of funds. An American literature professor with a big interest in Chadleigh can keep Bracketts running, in exchange for assistance on her biography of Chadleigh. But the mistrustful trustees are afraid the biographer is interested only in rooting out the skeletons in Chadleigh's closet-especially after uncovering one in his garden. Now, Carole and Jude must risk tarnishing the sterling reputation of a beloved author to learn whether his sword was mightier than his pen.

The Hopwicke Country House Hotel once boasted a clientele of the rich and famous. But desperate times call for desperate measures, so owner Suzy Longthorne throws open her doors to welcome the Pillars of Sussex, an elitist group of local businessmen whose social gatherings revolve around drinking and off-color commentary. Short staffed, Suzy recruits Jude Seddon as a waitress to help keep the spirits flowing. But the next morning, Jude discovers the body of a young man, supposedly an initiate for Pillar membership, hanging from the beam of a four-poster bed. The police are quick to rule the death a suicide. The Pillars of Sussex deny that the victim was ever considered for membership, and Suzy just wants to forget that it ever happened. But Jude knows that both parties have something to hide, and she's determined to uncover the truth. She enlists a reluctant Carole to nurture her relationship with a flirtatious Pillar in the hope that they can crack him.

The seaside town of Fethering, home to Carole Seddon and her friend Jude, is a place rife with foul play, as evidenced in this sixth mystery in the series. Carole is thrilled with the coming wedding of her once-estranged son, Stephen. She finds it odd, though, that the parents of the bride have no interest in arranging the wedding and seem terrified at the prospect of publicizing it. Things turn deadly intriguing when the father of the bride disappears at the engagement party, only to be found brutally murdered the following morn. Now, Carole elicits Jude's help in sifting through the guest list, including Gaby's nefarious brother and her uncle, a justice of the peace, before the festivities become completely funereal.

Fethering's favorite sleuths are at it again. Jude and Carole Seddon find themselves in the midst of some horseplay after stumbling upon the body of ex-equestrian Walter Fleet at Long Bamber Stables. The police attribute the stabbing death to the mysterious "Horse Ripper," who's been mutilating mares across West Sussex and who Walter obviously caught in the act. But considering Walter's reputation out of the saddle, Jude and Carole find that there are plenty of murder suspects, including Walter's put-upon wife and more than a few jealous husbands who wanted Walter put out to pasture.

Although she hadn't known Leonard Mallett very well, nor liked him particularly, Carole Seddon feels duty bound to attend her fellow committee member's funeral. As she suspected, the hymns, readings, and sermon are all very predictable-not unlike Leonard himself. What she couldn't have predicted was that the deceased's daughter would use the occasion to publicly accuse her stepmother of murder. Did Heather Mallett really kill her husband, as many Fethering residents believe? Deciding to get to the heart of the matter, Carole's neighbor Jude joins the new community choir-and discovers that amidst the clashing egos and petty resentments lurk some decidedly false notes.

Carole Seddon's trusty Renault is one of her most treasured possessions. So when it's vandalised, there's only one person she will entrust with its repair: Bill Shefford, who's been servicing the vehicles of the good citizens of Fethering for many years. But how could something like this happen in Fethering of all places? Then a note is shoved under Carole's kitchen door: Watch out. The car window was just the start. It appears that she's been deliberately targeted. But by whom, and why? Matters take an even more disturbing turn when a body is discovered at Shefford's Garage, crushed to death by a falling gearbox. People think it's a tragic accident, but Carole and her neighbor Jude are not so sure. And the more they question, the more evidence they uncover of decidedly foul play.

Having decided to redecorate Woodside Cottage, Jude engages the services of local man Pete, who painted and decorated the homes of Fethering residents for many years. Pete is currently working on Footscrow House, a large Victorian building that is being converted into holiday flats by a local developer. Having arranged to meet at Fiasco House, as it is known locally due to the many failed business enterprises over the years, Jude and Pete make a surprising discovery behind a wall panel: a woman's handbag! The casual discovery becomes serious when the police identify the handbag's owner as Anita Garner, a young woman who vanished under suspicious circumstances twenty years earlier. Determined to find out what really happened to Anita all those years ago, Jude and her neighbor, Carole, investigate-and are plunged into a maze of deception and murder.

Neighbors Carole and Jude investigate murder most horrid in the theatre in the latest Fethering village mystery from the original king of British cozy crime, internationally best-selling, award-winning author Simon Brett, OBE. For fans of Richard Osman-but with added bite! Carole Seddon, a very respectable retired woman living in the English seaside village of Fethering, doesn't care for the theatre. But her neighbor Jude counts the job of actress among her many and varied past careers. So when Jude attends the closing night of a new play based on a classic TV sitcom, Carole is interested-but only because she suspects the leading man, Drake Purslow, is one of her scandalous friend's ex-lovers. The night turns out to be more dramatic than either Carole or Jude could have ever predicted. After the performance, Jude makes her way to Drake's dressing room, only to find him dead-in what, to Jude's experienced sleuthing eye, seem very suspicious circumstances. Did one of the play's cast-made up almost entirely of the original sitcom's actors-have a long-held grudge against the show's star? Or are more recent hatreds to blame? Jude is determined to find out-and Carole, who despite protestations is almost pathologically nosy, is right there to investigate alongside her. Not met Carole and Jude yet? Dive right in, and discover why The Guardian called Simon Brett "one of British crime's most assured craftsmen." Fans of Janice Hallett and M.C. Beaton are in for a treat.