Deadly Habit, A: A theatrical mystery (A Charles Paris Mystery Book 20)

What a joy to read another Charles Paris, and realise that Brett has started writing them again – this is the third after far too long a gap. I love Charles Paris. He is without doubt the most attractive detective around, and Simon Brett is one of the wittiest of writers. I've enjoyed this book very much – the only problem is that I gulped it down in one (very long) sitting, and now I'll probably have to wait for a while before I can read it again. All Brett's books in the various series are good, with the Fethering mysteries, in my own opinion, ranking second to the Charles Paris. As always, we are entertained by the one liners of Charles' s bad reviews. He can never remember the good ones, he tells us. Actually, in spite of these reviews, Charles comes across as a very good actor who over the years has played many major roles. (As well as some less so, like the corpse in Murder in the Title!) I'd really love to see him getting some acknowledgement. However, the books might not work so well if he was reconciled with his wife, was off the booze, and was starring in a major West End success to enormous applause. I suppose then he wouldn't be the Charles Paris we know and love. Keeping them coming, Simon Brett!

Simon Brett’s journeyman actor Charles Paris makes a very welcome return. Charles has never ascended to the eights of his profession, and periods of gainful employment have tended to be the exception rather than the rule.His lack of professional success and achievement has been mirrored in his personal life, and now, nearing sixty (Simon Brett has not followed the approach of writers such as Ian Rankin and Michael Connelly in letting their protagonists age in real time, and Charles has been in his fifties ever since the publication of the earliest novels in the series back in the late 1970s), he is living alone in his bedsit near Paddington, and drinking prodigious amounts of alcohol.Things may be looking up on one front as Frances, his never-quite-divorced wife seems amenable to a rapprochement as they approach their sixties, but she has insisted that Charles needs to stop drinking. Predictably for anyone familiar with the series, Charles greets this terrifying prospect by getting hideously drunk.As the novel opens, Charles is in the unusual position of having some lucrative work lined up, and not just any old role. He has been selected for a role in a new play which is set for a three-month run in the West End, and did not even have to audition. The new play stars Julian Glover, an actor of similar age but markedly different career profile to Charles. Indeed, they had worked together more than thirty years ago in a repertory theatre in Dorset, when they had between them played Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (although at this remove neither could remember which was which). Since then, Glover had risen in the profession, starring in several films and securing a leading part in a blockbuster television series in the Game of Thrones genre. For reasons never made clear, Glover had recommended Charles for one of the minor parts in this play.Rehearsals begin, and the company seems to be coming together fairly well, with no major rifts or friction. As usual, Charles’s first concern is to sort out prospective drinking partners, and despite his hopes of continued rapprochement with Frances, he makes his habitual prospective philanderer’s assessment of the female members of the cast and crew. All is going well until one night towards the end of the rehearsal period, the female lead is found dead at the foot of a staircase, with no indication of whether she had fallen or been pushed. Shortly afterwards, the theatre’s ageing alcoholic doorman is also found dead in a seedy private drinking club. Charles once more finds himself in a theatre company which contains a murderer.Brett is very accomplished at developing engrossing plots, and adroitly judges the balance between suspense and humour. Charles is as engaging a character as ever, and this book adds another dimension to its predecessors with the reader rooting for Charles to succeed in his struggles over drinking.All in all, this was very entertaining.

I loved the beginning so much that I was willing to pay the fairly steep price for the ebook so I could read the whole book. The book is well written... but then it suddenly stops, apparently in mid-story.We're left to wonder who who really was the murderer. Sure, there were some featured suspects, and one of them actually confessed - but was the confession true or not? And what about the evidence pointing to the other characters? That was never resolved. We don't know who killed the victim, or why.Nor do other plot threads get tied up. Like Charles Paris (the main character) gave a false statement to the police. Nothing happened about that. Or indeed about the police investigation. So there's a murder in a theatre in London's West End, and the police just take a few quick statement, and otherwise leave the murder be without investigating. Is this supposed to be real? In fiction, the police officers would work to solve the crime. And in reality, they would too.Only in Simon Brett's novel does nobody investigate and the crime doesn't get solved. Charles Paris 'investigates' a little... asking a few questions, discovering suspicious object (which he doesn't hand to the police) but not enough to call this novel a 'mystery'.Basically, the whole novel revolve around the question 'Will Charles Paris give up drink?" and everything else is incidental and unresolved.It's a shame, since the beginning was so strong. The middle was strong too. It's just that the end was missing.I checked several times to make sure I really had read 100% of the book. It felt like the climax and resolution chapters should still come.And for that I paid this rather steep price. I'm not at all happy. (I hope I can return this ebook for a refund.)Anyone buying the book on the strength of the sample: The book continues in the same strong vein, just don't expect it to be a 'mystery' with a solution and tied threads.

The literary equivalent of comfort eating, but none the worse for it. Charles Paris, borderline alcoholic, adulterer, and not very successful actor somehow seems unable to avoid becoming involved in various serious crimes whereupon he morphs into a latter day Sherlock Holmes. Some sharp observations on the cult of celebrity, social media, and the acting profession about which the author clearly knows his stuff. Not very demanding perhaps but a pleasant change from the current deluge of Scandinavia noir which often seems obsessed with finding the most macabre ways in which a serial killer might dispatch his victims.