Guns in the Gallery: A Fethering Mystery

Louise Penny fans will enjoy Brett’s 13th cozy set in the West Sussex town of Fethering (after 2011’s Under the Beach Hut), even if the plot and depth of characterization don’t approach the high standard of Penny’s Inspector Gamache novels. Series heroine Carole Seddon reluctantly attends a private view entitled “Gun Culture” at a modern art gallery, where she and her good friend, Jude, hear an uncomfortably high-volume lovers’ spat that leads to a suicide. Certain that there’s more than meets the eye to the death, Carole and Jude once again turn amateur sleuths. While the investigation and resolution satisfy, the book’s chief pleasure lies in its sardonic character descriptions. Of a self-made businessman who likes to pontificate, Brett says, “He read widely, and if his assimilation of all he read was not always very deep, he did not let that prevent him from filling his conversation with frequently inapposite quotations and references.” (Mar.)