Death and the Decorator

Early in Edgar finalist Brett’s lively 21st mystery set in the West Sussex town of Fethering (after 2021’s Guilt at the Garage), Jude Nichols, who works as a healer, drops by Footscrow House, a large Victorian mansion known locally as Fiasco House because nobody seems to be able to make money from it, to talk to her decorator, Pete, about the color choice for her sitting room. Pete is part of the team converting the building to holiday flats for a property developer. While Pete is demolishing a wall, he and Jude discover a handbag in the rubble, which belonged to Anita Garner, a young woman who went missing some 30 years earlier. Speculation about Garner’s whereabouts was considerable at the time, and her disappearance has remained one of Fethering’s great unsolved mysteries. When the town’s designated prime suspect is murdered, Jude and her prickly friend and neighbor, Carole Seddon, a retired civil servant, each using their own inimitable methods, investigate. As usual, Brett supplies plausible if eccentric characters, brisk dialogue, and a plot full of surprising twists and amusing detours. This is sprightly good fun. Agent: Lisa Moylett, CMM Agency (U.K.) (July)