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Charles Paris #17
Dead Room Farce
Charles Paris, Simon Brett's actor-cum-accidental sleuth, returns to the boards in this seventeenth novel in the popular series.
When he is offered the chance to go on tour as a member of the cast of Not On Your Wife!, a new play by a prolific British farceur, he seizes the opportunity.
The plot thickens when the tour reaches Bath. Charles seems to be too deeply into his role in the bedroom farce on stage and off; he is caught with his pants down after becoming unwittingly involved with two women.
Charles is also enjoying a boisterous reunion with an old drinking buddy who runs the recording studio where Charles is making an audio book. But when his friend is found murdered, Charles quickly becomes a suspect.
At least one member of the cast has a secret to hide, and Charles is soon up to his usual off-stage histrionics in an effort to clear his name so this won't become his final curtain call.
When he is offered the chance to go on tour as a member of the cast of Not On Your Wife!, a new play by a prolific British farceur, he seizes the opportunity.
The plot thickens when the tour reaches Bath. Charles seems to be too deeply into his role in the bedroom farce on stage and off; he is caught with his pants down after becoming unwittingly involved with two women.
Charles is also enjoying a boisterous reunion with an old drinking buddy who runs the recording studio where Charles is making an audio book. But when his friend is found murdered, Charles quickly becomes a suspect.
At least one member of the cast has a secret to hide, and Charles is soon up to his usual off-stage histrionics in an effort to clear his name so this won't become his final curtain call.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
11 people are currently reading
154 people want to read
About the author
Simon Brett
330 books540 followersSimon 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
April 5, 2019
A middlingly written mystery novel featuring the actor turned amateur sleuth Charles Paris. The BBC radio version featuring Bill Nighy as Paris is expertly cast and rather well done, bringing forth the wittier lines amongst the hubris of a plot.
My rating - 3/5 (purely for the radio adaptation, not for the plot)
My rating - 3/5 (purely for the radio adaptation, not for the plot)
July 18, 2023
This was the sixteenth outing for Charles Paris, Simon Brett's immensely likeable yet singularly unsuccessful actor who has developed a facility for unravelling the murders that seem to dog him wherever he might go.
Throughout the previous tales we have become familiar with his drinking, and occasional philandering, from which he emerges as a man almost wholly lacking in any vestige of willpower. As this volume opens Charles is enjoying a period of relative success. Not only has he been given a part in a touring production of a new farce, but he has also landed some additional work as a reader for the burgeoning audio-book market. Admittedly his role is relatively minor, and he is extremely disdainful of the play itself, but it is work and will both help to stave off some of the more enterprising of his creditors, and serve to bolster his all-too-fragile self-confidence.
Similarly, the book that he is recording (a formulaic romance story with characters that are barely even two-dimensional and an utterly anodyne plot) might not ever be rated as great literature, and is not something that he would ever have dreamt of reading of his own volition. It does, however, yield a modest fee, and Charles is additionally buoyed up by the fact that, having arranged the work himself, he will not have to pay a cut to his agent. Consequently, his outlook is rosier than it has been for a long time, and Charles even begins to consider attempting (another) rapprochement with Frances, his estranged wife.
Needless to say, before we are far into the novel, an untimely death occurs, and Charles sets to unravelling the truth behind it. In this case it is Mark Lear, a former BBC sound engineer with whom Charles had worked in ‘the good old days’ when they were both younger and the BBC had plenty of cash. Mark is found dead in the small independent recording studio that he and his partner Lisa were running, and where Charles had been doing his book recording.
Simon Brett is a master of understated comedy. He has obviously worked in many aspects of the theatre and the sphere of television "light entertainment" and he exposes the pomposity and hypocrisy that is rife throughout the theatrical world. However, his light touch and the humour sprinkled throughout the book never detract from the integrity of the plot which is well thought out and very plausible.
Another strong theatrical whodunnit!
Throughout the previous tales we have become familiar with his drinking, and occasional philandering, from which he emerges as a man almost wholly lacking in any vestige of willpower. As this volume opens Charles is enjoying a period of relative success. Not only has he been given a part in a touring production of a new farce, but he has also landed some additional work as a reader for the burgeoning audio-book market. Admittedly his role is relatively minor, and he is extremely disdainful of the play itself, but it is work and will both help to stave off some of the more enterprising of his creditors, and serve to bolster his all-too-fragile self-confidence.
Similarly, the book that he is recording (a formulaic romance story with characters that are barely even two-dimensional and an utterly anodyne plot) might not ever be rated as great literature, and is not something that he would ever have dreamt of reading of his own volition. It does, however, yield a modest fee, and Charles is additionally buoyed up by the fact that, having arranged the work himself, he will not have to pay a cut to his agent. Consequently, his outlook is rosier than it has been for a long time, and Charles even begins to consider attempting (another) rapprochement with Frances, his estranged wife.
Needless to say, before we are far into the novel, an untimely death occurs, and Charles sets to unravelling the truth behind it. In this case it is Mark Lear, a former BBC sound engineer with whom Charles had worked in ‘the good old days’ when they were both younger and the BBC had plenty of cash. Mark is found dead in the small independent recording studio that he and his partner Lisa were running, and where Charles had been doing his book recording.
Simon Brett is a master of understated comedy. He has obviously worked in many aspects of the theatre and the sphere of television "light entertainment" and he exposes the pomposity and hypocrisy that is rife throughout the theatrical world. However, his light touch and the humour sprinkled throughout the book never detract from the integrity of the plot which is well thought out and very plausible.
Another strong theatrical whodunnit!
May 14, 2022
Simon Brett’s Charles Paris mysteries are unfailingly amusing, and packed with enjoyable theatrical and showbiz gossip. This one starts with a very funny parody of a bad theatrical sex-farce and goes on to include the recording of an audiobook at the beginning of the audiobook resurgence, when cassette tapes were still the dominant format. It’s all great fun and very knowing. I would bump this up to 3 1/2 stars if I could, since it is better than it needs to be, if not great, which it isn't trying to be.
Brett is no Wodehouse, but he shares with Wodehouse and comic writers like Richmal Crompton the ability to retread the same characters and themes almost endlessly without ever becoming boring or dropping beneath (or above) a certain self-imposed standard. There is no lazy writing. This review could apply equally to any of his books (although admittedly I haven’t read all or even most of them – perhaps there are some stinkers in there). The sex-farce parody is all the more amusing because I am sure that Brett is aware that his own books are perhaps only a few steps up the ladder from such shameless populist stuff.
If I have a problem with these books it is that I would frankly prefer that they were not mysteries. I would be more than happy to read them as theatrical comedies, without the statutory killings, but I suppose that wouldn’t shift as many copies (there has to be ‘murder in the title’). The theatrical bits are always the best. I have an especial love for novels of theatrical life, but they are known for underselling.
In my private literary dreamworld I like to imagine this series, sans killings, as a kind of Dance To The Music Of Time of British showbiz life over the last forty years or more...
I am not a great fan of crime writing. I have no desire to read fiction about real crime (why would you?) and while I enjoy ‘cosy’ mysteries such as these (and the works of Bruce Montgomery) I have a fundamental issue. Is murder really a suitable topic for comedy? I understand that it is a way of coming to terms with unacceptable things in an acceptable way – but would we do the same with sexual assault or child abuse? Why is acceptable with the killing of a human being? I know I am overthinking this, but it does niggle at me sometimes…
Brett is no Wodehouse, but he shares with Wodehouse and comic writers like Richmal Crompton the ability to retread the same characters and themes almost endlessly without ever becoming boring or dropping beneath (or above) a certain self-imposed standard. There is no lazy writing. This review could apply equally to any of his books (although admittedly I haven’t read all or even most of them – perhaps there are some stinkers in there). The sex-farce parody is all the more amusing because I am sure that Brett is aware that his own books are perhaps only a few steps up the ladder from such shameless populist stuff.
If I have a problem with these books it is that I would frankly prefer that they were not mysteries. I would be more than happy to read them as theatrical comedies, without the statutory killings, but I suppose that wouldn’t shift as many copies (there has to be ‘murder in the title’). The theatrical bits are always the best. I have an especial love for novels of theatrical life, but they are known for underselling.
In my private literary dreamworld I like to imagine this series, sans killings, as a kind of Dance To The Music Of Time of British showbiz life over the last forty years or more...
I am not a great fan of crime writing. I have no desire to read fiction about real crime (why would you?) and while I enjoy ‘cosy’ mysteries such as these (and the works of Bruce Montgomery) I have a fundamental issue. Is murder really a suitable topic for comedy? I understand that it is a way of coming to terms with unacceptable things in an acceptable way – but would we do the same with sexual assault or child abuse? Why is acceptable with the killing of a human being? I know I am overthinking this, but it does niggle at me sometimes…
March 28, 2018
I didn't realise that this was book 17 in a series, but I really enjoyed it. It worked well without me needing to have read the others, although I probably will do now that I have discovered the series.
Fun, funny and relatively genteel murder mystery with an actor/detective!
Fun, funny and relatively genteel murder mystery with an actor/detective!
October 3, 2018
Wow. Charles Paris and his complicated relationships. Sheesh!
The murder was almost secondary to this story. I didn’t figure out the killer—although it was quite complicated—but Charles’ blunderings are more entertaining than anything!
The murder was almost secondary to this story. I didn’t figure out the killer—although it was quite complicated—but Charles’ blunderings are more entertaining than anything!
December 24, 2020
Light mystery featuring Charles Paris - a drunken actor - as the detective. The best things in the book are the "critical reviews" of Paris' performances. But I wasn't wold about the detective himself.
October 23, 2016
Charles Paris strikes again
Carefully crafted as ever and always moving at a good pace, Charles always seems to get his man and sometimes his woman.
Carefully crafted as ever and always moving at a good pace, Charles always seems to get his man and sometimes his woman.
July 5, 2017
Charles Paris continues to live Farce 24/7.
March 18, 2018
Entertaining froth but quite fun.
November 20, 2018
Didn't improve! As I wrote before I have previously enjoyed Simon Brett's work but this one was not of the same standard.
March 24, 2020
3 1/2 really - another installment in the life of Charles Paris - poor Charles
January 10, 2022
( Format : Audiobook )
"Not on your Wife."
Review follows
"Not on your Wife."
Review follows
January 26, 2023
droll.
January 2, 2025
Another fun Paris mystery, this time with the murder in question set in the world of audiobooks and small recording booths.
October 31, 2024
Charles continues to delight. This time he's trying his hand at audiobook narration in his spare time (!) during a tour of a new farce. But before he can really enjoy the sensation of having more than one job at a time, the boss of the audiobook company is found dead in the recording booth. Charles isn't convinced it was an accident - especially after the death occured following the recording of an advert for the play where the dead man talked about writing an expose on his time at the BBC. And as a result of the investigation Charles finds himself making serious efforts (for once) to try and quit the booze.
July 24, 2015
I listened to this in the car as a digital download from the library (get me, doing techy stuff!) It was read by Simon Brett himself and he did a really good job of it. I have previously listened to BBC adaptations featuring Bill Nighy, so he will always be Charles Paris for me. A great character and a fun series of books, perfect to listen to on a long drive.
January 26, 2014
I love all the Charles Paris novels. This is by far the best of Simon Brett's series of novels although I do have a soft spot for Mrs Pargeter's set of adventures.
For a page-turning, laugh-out-loud but truly clever read Brett's Charles Paris cannot be beaten.
For a page-turning, laugh-out-loud but truly clever read Brett's Charles Paris cannot be beaten.
July 22, 2014
Charles Paris #17
May 14, 2015
A great fun read
October 10, 2015
Charles recognises alcohol has an effect on his life
January 7, 2017
A Charles Paris mystery. Slightly different from the usual Paris mysteries but not that impressed.
September 5, 2009
Funny, kept my attention (and with a competing TV, that is saying something), all around good read.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews