Death and Fromage (Follet Valley Mysteries #2)

by Ian Moore

he had his many, many regrets, filed away on his own internal hard drive, to be viewed morosely when the chips were down or as a stark reminder when things were going well.

despite his wild talk, wished they had arrived with a plan in the first place, discussed it, printed out a few copies and maybe even had a dry run.

each pair representing a different pastel shade as though they were a human swatch booklet for the colours of a tastefully decorated downstairs toilet.

Another felt the same about the air-conditioning, while the third said they’d arrived in the area in ‘better shape than their old man did in the war’, which put a stop to the complaints of the others.

Do bounty hunters keep receipts? It seemed unlikely. Wanted: dead or alive – depending on your mileage and sustenance charges.

and if a CT scan of his brain had been available at that moment it may have resembled Edvard Munch’s The Scream.

‘Aesthetics are the barriers philosophers put up to stop the appreciation of art,’ he said bitterly. ‘Mending things that don’t need fixing.’

What had Bette Davis said about her when she’d heard of her death? You should never say bad things about the dead, only good. Joan Crawford is dead. Good.

‘What will you cook, René?’ Richard asked, genuinely fascinated as to what this bull of a man had in mind. ‘Well, my tarte tatin was famous in A block at La Santé.’ He seemed almost wistful at the memory. ‘La Santé?’ Richard asked. ‘It’s a large prison in Paris,’ Valérie said. ‘It sounds like a health retreat. Hang on, you could cook your own meals?’ ‘Well, sometimes, yes. We had to. If we were rioting and they shut the block off, you still had to eat.’ It made perfect sense. ‘So you’ll be going with tarte tatin, then?’

whereas René wore the kind of stony-faced scowl that made him the talk of A block and the scourge of customer service.