The Penultimate Chance Saloon

by Simon Brett

Newsreader Bill Stratton has to do some soul searching when, on the verge of his 60th birthday, his wife tells him that she is leaving him for another man, and worse still, she has never been happy in their 40-year marriage.

Genres: Fiction

222 pages, Paperback

First published February 24, 2006

About the author

Simon Brett is a prolific British writer of whodunnits.

He is the son of a Chartered Surveyor and was educated at Dulwich College and Wadham College, Oxford, where he got a first class honours degree in English.

He then joined the BBC as a trainee and worked for BBC Radio and London Weekend Television, where his work included 'Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy' and 'Frank Muir Goes Into ...'.

After his spells with the media he began devoting most of his time to writing from the late 1970s and is well known for his various series of crime novels.

He is married with three children and lives in Burpham, near Arundel, West Sussex, England. He is the current president of the Detection Club.

Reviews

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd give this 3 and a half stars. Not quite entertaining enough to warrant 4 stars but well written nonetheless.

I picked this book up b/c it seemed like a light read and was written from the male point of view and I rarely read fictional books from that perspective.

The main character is a man of about 60 that is recently and suddenly divorced. He finds out that his wife has not been happy with him since the honeymoon but stayed unhappily married for 40 yrs. She even stayed on birth control b/c she did not want to have children with him. She plays the role of the long suffering wife. I read this book and wanted to throw it at her. He then proceeds to have a late in life sexual coming of age that he missed out on in his youth.

I appreciated a male point of view b/c the main character noticed that all ex-husbands were described similarly but the wives rarely if ever left. It made me think about how often women will complain about a situation but not do anything about it and then play the victim. The main character is somewhat guilty of this too. He admits he didn't have the happiest of marriages and that their union was flawed but never says a word or does a thing to fix it. They were both content to be discontent. All in all, a fairly interesting read.

[Chi Dubinski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simon Brett is a British author who has written several mystery series that I’ve read—the Charles Paris series, the Fethering series and the Mrs. Pargeter series. They are witty, not too violent, and have interesting characters. For this challenge, I chose one of his stand-alone books, “The Penultimate Chance Saloon.”
Bill Stratton, is a shallow television newsreader, known for his segments of amusing tidbits delivered after the hard news, introduced with the words “by way of contrast.” He is pretty well pleased with his life as he turns sixty, and is caught off guard when his wife Andrea announces that she is leaving him for a doctor named Dewi. Bill would have told anyone that he and Andrea were a happy couple, and he believed it. Bill gets back into the dating game, and begins a new career as a speaker, capitalizing on his popular news items.
I enjoyed the book—it was a humorous, quick read. The main character, Bill, was shallow but not obnoxious and seemed pleasantly oblivious to what was going on in his life.

[Gina · Rating 2 out of 5]

So I really hate the term "chick lit." It's such a condescending way to refer to women-centered fiction, and I find many of the people who use this term, especially men who use it, are dismissing and disrespecting stories about women's lives and experiences.

My distaste for that term, however, will not stop me from saying that The Penultimate Chance Saloon is 100% "dick lit." Bill follows his dick throughout this entire book, and for a while it's funny and cute and interesting, and then it stops being so through sheer repetition. The one saving grace here is that the descriptions of Bill's trysts are not described in any kind of detail, because if they had been I think I would have burst into flames and DNF'd it after the first such description.

Also, there was not one single BWOC story in this book that was even remotely funny. That guy who was writing them? No future as a stand-up comedian. None.

Brett did a good job narrating the audiobook, at least.

[Leon Kaminsky · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book's characters are rich people working in media. More often than not, this is not the kind of folks that show real emotions, and although some feelings are mentioned in the novel, you just don't feel any of that. The overall impression is as if you're watching someone from afar, but you can't either see their faces or really hear what they're saying.
Ultimately, there are two kinds of books: the kind where the author has something to say, and then there is soulless commercial fiction. Guess which kind this books belongs to.

[Myprivatebookclub · Rating 3 out of 5]

📰I wanted to try something new, so I am glad that I found this standalone by Simon Brett. I saw that her had lots of mysteries, series, but I did not want to commit to that much.
📰At first, I enjoyed the humour, the witty language, the airiness of the characters.
📰Then I got bored by the age of the main character and his encounters, which became the main subject of the book.
📰I am glad that the book is over. I am willing to try a mystery by the author, but maybe after a pause.
📰I enjoyed each one of the “by way of contrast” openings of each chapter😹funny and witty!

[Susan Bryson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a fan of Simon Brett's cosy mysteries, this is the first standalone book of his I have read, and I enjoyed it.
Bill is newly divorced from a 40 year marriage. A marriage he thought had been successful, but Andrea had thought otherwise and claimed not to have loved him since the honeymoon. Approaching his sixtieth year and only ever having been with one woman he struggles to learn how to survive. This is the story of a difficult journey of awakening.
I found it touching, funny, endearing and hopeful.

[Rog Harrison · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had mistakenly thought that this was one of the author's mystery stories. Unfortunately it's about a sixty year old man who gets divorced and has affairs. It's readable and mildly amusing but just not the sort of book I want to read.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simon Brett’s easy humour and knack for creating loveably flawed characters are given an outing in this literary equivalent of a light snack. A very pleasant read.

[Carson hall · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't finish, not my kind of book.

[Sarah Hearn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite different from Brett's mysteries but still a fun read, containing the usual amount of mockery of social sacred cows such as self-help books, do-gooders, public speaking engagements, and celebrity. Bill Stanton discovers that the wife he's been married to for 40 years has hated him since the second week of their honeymoon. She goes off with her do-gooder lover leaving Bill to discover what he missed in the swinging sixties. His progress through the beds of innumerable older women makes up the main body of the book.

[Virginia · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a change...I read a story with male main character/narrator; pretty fun. A pretty light-hearted but not completely shallow adventure tale of a ~60year old newly divorced bloke (British, so I can say this)making up for lost time on the 'dating' scene after his wife of 40 years pulls the plug on their marriage-admitting she was 'over it' about the second week of their honeymoon. Ouch.

[Sherri Dub · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't find it in me to like this book.
I read it, but it was like getting a tooth pulled.
Very flat characters, and a no-where plot that led to me wanting to hurl the book into the trash so that no one else would ask to read it.
It felt like a desperate version of a sad story that no one wants to hear in a bar.
Pass~

[Val · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very different book from Brett. It is about a man whose wife decides she wants out after 40 years of marriage; he thought everything was aok. It is about the changes to his lifestyle and the way he acts around women. Bit heavy going in parts but nice to see the other side of how a man copes with a breakup instead of the woman. Some funny parts.

[Dani]

If you wanna get people to read this book I recommend using the edition where the book cover is an old man with a rose between his teeth who looks like he's dancing a rumba... It's the only reason I bothered with this book at all.

[Janine Fenton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unusually for Simon Brett not a mystery, but an interesting story about how relationships work and fail, and how people grow with them.

[Isaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

something light for a change

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favourite Simon Brett - made me think of a Radio 2 phone in if there is such a thing.

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a slim little book with a blank page after each chapter, surely note for notes. It was not to be taken too seriously, but a change of pace for Simon Britt.

[Jennifer Dudley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a light-hearted book by the wonderful writer Simon Brett. A book that makes me laugh out loud several times is very special, therefore I give it 4 stars. Thank you Mr. Brett!

[Christa Sigman · Rating 2 out of 5]

The best thing about this book is the title. Don't waste your time

[Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute, but only just. I love Simon Brett's mystery series, but this contemporary fiction fell just a bit flat. The characters were oddly one-dimensional. The storyline was fun, though.