Simon Brett. Death on the Downs (2001)

     Simon Brett. Death on the Downs (2001) “A Fethering Mystery.” Brett has invented a pair of middle aged women sleuths living on the Sussex coast and entirely too curious for their own good. The back story is that both are divorced, and both have love troubles, but Brett keeps these firmly in the background. Pity; if he wants readers to buy more books, he should make the characters more interesting. Sheltering from the rain in an old barn, Carole Seddon finds some human bones neatly packaged in blue plastic fertiliser bags. Discovering their identity and the reason for the odd hiding place takes up some 330-odd pages of pleasantly written and imagined story. The resolution resolves an ancient grudge going back to childhood cruelty and causing a third murder. Brett has written witty and sometimes macabre short stories, as well as scripts for the Holmes series, and so on, so he knows his metier, and does a craftsmanlike job. This book is number two in a projected series; I’ll look for the other numbers, but won’t cry if I don’t find them **½ (2004)