Simon Brett

Carole and Jude are faced with trying to uncover who is responsible for the murder of a Polish immigrant. Jude finds herself under suspicion when she happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Carole unbends from her usual puritanical stance sufficiently to enter a bookies. But it's all in the course of detection.

Due to financial hardships at Tawcester Towers, the Dowager Duchess has decreed that the only way the family fortunes can be restored is to marry Blotto off... to an American!

Tawcester Towers has suffered an unwelcome injection of distant cousins. Count Igor and Count Lyudmilla Bashusky had to flee Russia after the Revolution. Their arrival causes a stir, and it's up to Blotto and Twinks, that indefatigable duo, to provide a solution to get them back to Russia.

The Dowager Duchess decides to sell off some family possessions, which have been consigned to the attics. The valuer spies a sarchophagus decorated with hieroglyphs. Twinks starts to translate: 'Anyone who desecrates this shrine will be visited by the Pharoah's curse...' - just as Blotto prises the lid off!

Murder, from the simply bizarre to the downright nasty, is the theme of this collection of short stories from Simon Brett. The 12 stories include one featuring the boozy actor-detective Charles Paris.

Charles Paris lands a minor part in Eastbourne's Christmas production of Cinderella, but when he stumbles across a body beneath Eastbourne Pier, the pantomime rehearsals slip into chaos. It's up to Charles to put his renowned sleuthing skills to the test to find out who really killed his fellow cast member - and why.

Ellen Curtis runs her own business as a declutterer. She is used to encountering all sorts of weird and wonderful objects in the course of her work, but she has never before encountered a dead body. When Ellen stumbles across the corpse of a young woman, suspicion immediately falls on the deceased homeowner's son, who has recently absconded from prison. Discovering a link between the victim and her own past, Ellen sets out to uncover the truth. But where has her best friend disappeared to? And is Ellen really prepared for the shocking revelations to follow?

Jude's life has been turned upside-down thanks her new man, Piers Targett, who's keen to get her involved in his hobby - or obsession - of Real Tennis. But when one of Piers' friends dies on the court in suspicious circumstances, Jude finds herself caught up in the police investigation.

Madeleine Severn has always looked much younger than her years and had her pupils falling in love with her. Paul Grigson is the latest student to fall for Madeleine but his feelings for her are becoming obsessive.

Actor-sleuth Charles Paris is on a three month tour of the farce "Not on Your Wife", when someone in the cast murders an old friend.

Having been booked to give a talk at Fethering Library, successful author Burton St Clair invites his old friend Jude to come along. What Jude hadn't been suspecting however was that the evening would end in sudden, violent death. More worrying, from Jude's point of view, is the fact that the investigating police officers seem to be convinced that she herself was responsible for the crime.

The delightful musings of a baby who systematically brings chaos and havoc into the lives of his parents. Contains 'How To Be A Little Sod'; 'Little Sod's Next Step' and 'Not Another Little Sod'.

Meet Major Bricket, an infrequent resident of Highfield House in Stunston Peveril, Suffolk. In the past the Major's work assignments, frequently in foreign countries, have prevented him from spending much time there and as a result, there is an air of mystery around him while everyone in the village speculates on the nature of his occupation.

But now the Major has retired and has come home for good in his open-topped little red sports car... and what a homecoming it is, for lying spreadeagled on his lawn in the summer sunshine is the corpse of a clown.

Fortunately Major Bricket's past clandestine career means that he is now very well placed to solve the mystery of the dead clown on his camomile lawn…

It is her characteristic generosity rather than her love of animals that finds Mrs Pargeter supporting her friend, Jasmine Angold, at a charity reception for PhiliPussies, whose worthy aim is to rehabilitate stray cats from the Greek island of Atmos into caring English homes. But the evening is to have unexpected consequences. At the event, Mrs P is taken aback to meet a woman who claims to be the sister of her late husband, the much-missed Mr Pargeter. This surprising encounter leads to unwelcome digging into past secrets, the discovery of a body in Epping Forest, an eventful trip to Greece - and unexpected danger for Mrs Pargeter.

Carole Seddon regrets her decision to join the Board of Bracketts, which is overseeing the conversion of Bracketts, an Elizabethan house into a museum. But when a skeleton and then a second body are found in the grounds, Carole is once again involved in a murder investigation.

Carole Seddon and her friend Jude find themselves in the midst of some horseplay, after stumbling upon the body of ex-equestrian at Long Bamber Stables.