The Body on the Beach (Fethering Mysteries 1) (original 2000; edition 2009)

I like Simon Brett and was pleased to find this series. ( )

Carole Seddon is not someone I’d like to meet in real life. In her 50′s and retired from a job in the Home Office she has established a very orderly life for herself in the village of Fethering. She has a long list of rules about what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable behaviours and seems to judge people on the most insignificant of factors. As this book opens she is walking her dog Gulliver on the beach when they discover a body. After making her way home and washing the dog Carole notifies the Police but when they look in the spot Carole has described there is no body. Being a little shocked at finding a body and at having been treated like a silly old lady by the Police, Carole takes the unusual step of talking to her new neighbour about the events.

Jude (just Jude, no surname) is the woman who has moved in next door to Carole and is her complete opposite in terms of personality. She has no set rules for acceptable behaviour as can be evidenced by her ordering large glasses of wine (sometimes at lunch time) and beating her rugs in the front garden! But though Jude isn’t ‘a Fethering sort of person at all’ she listens to Carole and doesn’t think she’s crazy so the two women embark on a friendship of sorts and decide to investigate what happened to the body they are both convinced that Carole saw. Through a series of orchestrated meetings with key players in the village they start to build up a picture of what might have gone on.

As the setting is described in a fair amount of detail the story here is slow to get going but once it does there’s a nice build up of suspense, though the plot is not terribly difficult to work out for people who’ve read a lot of crime fiction. However if English village mysteries are your thing then I think you’d really enjoy this book as Brett has done a great job of depicting the place and its various characters so that not all is as idyllic as it might first appear. Somewhat unusually for this kind of story the motive for murder and associated covering up activities is really very credible when finally revealed.

There are a further 11 books (so far) in this series and because there are hints that Carole’s very prim and proper personality might be weakening towards the end of this book I could be tempted to read another if for no other reason than to find out if she does join the human race after all. The Body on the Beach certainly has decent plotting, an intricately drawn setting and credible, if not likable, characters to recommend it as a promising start to a series. ( )

I liked this book at the beginning. The community sounded interesting. I liked Carole! and I found that connection between Carole and Jude potentially interesting. But as the book evolved I just wanted it to be over. I am not sure what it was that was missing. ( )

Really enjoyable weekend's read. I'd been looking for some entertainment and having heard a snatch of this on Radio 4 Extra I was delighted to find it in the library.
Forgive the pun in the opening sentence of this novel, it gets better. There must be a reason why I suddenly enjoyed reading about a heroine in her early fifties, recently retired, but I just can't quite put my finger on it.
Forgive also, the moment when the plot falls apart because the criminal's motivation just doesn't seem plausible.
I'll look out for other books by this author - and there are lots of them! ( )

This is the first in the `Fethering' mystery series, and though I'm a bit late to the party I'm sure it won't be long before I'm fully caught up with the rest of these, because this was a really fun read. It's not quite a `cosy' mystery as it is a bit darker in tone, but still manages to retain a nice traditional feel owing to its small coastal town setting which I enjoyed a lot.

The main protagonist is fifty-something divorcee Carole Seddon, a rather prim woman who tends to keep herself to herself, until she stumbles across a body on the local beach whilst she's walking her dog. After reporting her find to the police, she is perplexed to be told there is nothing there. The only person who believes that she isn't merely a hysterical woman is her new neighbour, Jude, a woman who seems to be hiding a few secrets of her own...

I have to confess that from the get go I wasn't sure if this mystery would appeal to me. I do read *a lot* of mystery and crime novels and this book at first mainly appeared to focus on a description of the village itself which I thought would be a little bit dry. However, the description was nicely done and it did pull me into the story, so by the time Carole actually came along I did feel I knew a little bit about Fethering and could clearly see it in my mind. Carole and Jude make terrific amateur sleuths and it was nice to see a genuine friendship building between them as the book progressed- particularly as they are complete opposites in just about everything!

The characters are sharply portrayed too, even the secondary ones, and I appreciated the depiction of small town attitudes and actions that were written into the novel, particularly the attitudes towards newcomer Jude which rang very true to life. The book is varied in context and I couldn't quite put all of the pieces of the mystery together until near the end, which was good. I hate mysteries that are just too obvious, but thankfully this wasn't. It's also a non-too-taxing read, ideal if you have a few hours to curl up and relax.

The little seeds of mystery have also been well and truly sprinkled about the enigmatic Jude. I look forward to getting to know her and Carole better as I continue the rest of this lovely British crime series. Recommended if you like traditional mysteries and British detective stories; this is a lovely little whodunit.

*This review also appears on Amazon.co.uk* ( )