A Series of Murders

Charles Paris believed that everything was temporary. He felt that Russell Bentley, the star of the new television series, played every part the same way. W.T. Wintergreen is being adapted for television. West End Television is hoping for a hit series on the order of MISS MARPLE starring Joan Hickson. The writer for this series vows to do only dead writers in the future. Charles has been hired to play a character, a uniformed policeman, appearing in every episode. He is pleased to have three months' employment. Our hero encounters a dead cast member in the prop room. Real police arrive on the scene and the death is held to be accidental. Work has been an intermittent visitor in Paris's theatrical career. Drinking has served to fill-in time. He lives in a tacky bed-sitter. There is a phone on the landing. His agent, who hadn't found work for him for two years, knows more about the progress of the current television production than he does. Unexplained deaths continue. Paris probes for causes while being amusing. His employment history has caused him to be an onlooker in life. An amused and knowledgeable and charitable observer is a good thing in a murder mystery. This book is well-done and will repay any reader's attention.

Simon Brett now returns to the extraordinary character who made him famous: Charles Paris, the usually out-of-work actor who on occasion imbibes a little too much and who detects even better than he acts. A Series of Murders finds Charles gainfully employed in what he hopes will be the long-running Stanislas Braid television series based on some rather dated 1930s novels. Charles is booked for three highly paid months as Sergeant Clump of the Little Breckington Police Station, foil to the suave detective Braid, a disciple of the School of Lord Peter Wimsey. Russell Bentley, a wooden and egotistical leading man who always plays himself, stars as Braid, and an impossibly bad actress, Sippy Stokes, is "absolute death" as Stanislas Braid's naive young daughter, Christina. Television sitcoms hardly require Shakespearean training, but Sippy is so awful she may ruin the show. Fortunately for the series but sadly for Sippy, Charles discovers the young lady crushed to death beneath a props case when he wanders into the props room (on his way to the bar) early in the shooting schedule. Charles knows that many people had cause to dislike Sippy or to wish her gone, but murder would seem to be an extreme way to terminate anybody's contract. Simon Brett is in very fine form here