Jeremy Front

While fun and laugh-out-loud funny at times, I found the mysteries/crimes themselves to be pretty shallow and uninvolving. The characters and situations (all ridiculous) are more the focus than is figuring out who done it. It wasn't a total bust, but I'm not going to get the second collection right away. Oh and Nighy does a brilliant drunk.

If, like me, you are an affectionado of crime stories, you will understand the mixture of excitement and trepidation that I feel whenever one of my 'heroes' is to be projected upon the big, or small, screen or portrayed upon the radio. This certainly was relevant, the first time that I heard that the BBC were to produce a radio serial of one of Simon Brett's excellent Charles Paris mysteries: however, I need not have worried. Auntie did her usual excellent job and Bill Nighy's voice sounded show more so much like the Charles Paris in my head, that I realised that I had been seeing him in the role from the first time I opened one of the books!

These books are not great literature and yet, they are well written and deserve to be given a serious place in the oeuvre of detective fiction. Simon Brett is an expert at allowing his reader (or, in this case, listener) to work out the plot line just a word or two before our detective. Of course, this revelation only occurs after one has been lead down enough blind alleys for all to be aware that the author is toying with his humble reader/listener.

This is another cracking yarn; making no pretension to be 'realistic' - i.e. the murders and gruesome and the story has a nice line in gentle humour. This marvellous rendition will play on my CD machine more than once (fortunately, I have a head like a sieve and can forget who the murder is within a couple of days!).

I definitely recommend this title to detective fiction fans, fans of Simon Brett and/or Bill Nighy and anyone who simply enjoys a good, light-hearted tale, well told - and if that list misses you out, the I recommend it to you too! show less