Worthless Remains: A Chris Honeysett Mystery

Helton’s diverting fifth Chris Honeysett mystery (after 2012’s An Inch of Time, 2012) finds Honeysett, a painter and PI, ensconced at Mill House, a rural retreat outside the city of Bath, with two overweight sheep and his girlfriend, Annis Jordan. For Honeysett, Jordan only counts as “half a girl,” since she’s also dating his partner in Aqua Investigations, ex-safecracker Tim Bigwood, not that anyone involved minds. Simon Paris, Honeysett’s gallerist in Bath and London, does mind that his client has switched his painting style from abstract to realistic. Honeysett is worried about all the bills the postman keeps delivering—which is why he ends up accepting a job looking after haughty, self-involved Guy Middleton, the presenter of an archeology TV program, who has been receiving a spate of chilling death threats. Some readers may feel Helton strains too hard at times for humorous effect, but Anglophiles should be satisfied with his close attention to the subtleties of British culture—and cookery in particular. (Sept.)