Amy Myers is known for her short stories and historical novels featuring Victorian chef Auguste Didier and chimney sweep Tom Wasp. Her contemporary series feature ex-cop Peter Marsh and Daughter and classic car detective Jack Colby, and she is currently working on a new series starring Cara Shelley who runs a café in the grounds of stately home Tanton Towers.
Website: www.amymyers.net
Sometimes it’s good just to settle down with a good, undemanding, well written novel, and for crime story lovers Simon Brett’s Fethering series fits the bill superbly.
On second thoughts, delete the word undemanding, because I enjoyed the first chapter so much it demanded that I went back to re-read it for sheer pleasure. Fethering, which has been visited by murder on quite a few occasions for this series, is a small village on the south coast, and boasts not only a pub and the library of the title but two remarkable residents. Jude and her neighbour Carole have made a good team when it comes to solving murders, but on this occasion, Carole is looking after her granddaughter when Jude (who is assuaging a guilty conscience over not using her local library sufficiently) attends an event there.
Burton St Clair, author of a best-selling book after many unsuccessful years of writing in pursuit of such fame, is speaking on the topic of a writer’s life. Jude is fascinated because when she knew him his name was Al Sinclair and he was married to her good friend Megan. That was many years ago, and a lot has changed. Not everything though. St Clair’s hands still rove where women are concerned, as Jude quickly discovers. When St Clair is found dead, Jude becomes a suspect as she was the last person to see him alive – but Carole steps into the breach to help find a very determined murderer.
The Daily Telegraph described Simon Brett as the ‘king of the witty village mystery’. Long live the King, say I.
