Simon Brett
a mystery written in the's, Not what I was looking for and slower moving then epected, Not a steller recommendation from me, This novel is exponentially better than the début, even though three sound like a small stepup.
“So Much Blood” is set in Edinburgh! The vibrancy of a Scottish fringe festival is brighter, than narrating about how poor Charles was in his London bedsit.
Secondly, we watch Charles as a
professional actor! Plots build around preparation for a oneman play he wrote and will perform.
This novel is named after it,
He is drawn plausibly into solving a murder, after it occurs in front of all who were in a rehearsal space.
I further applaud the abundance of suspects, which ensures we cant hastily identify a killer, We follow a particularly bitter university student a lot of the time but explosive personalities abound among young, untried theatre rats! I am not an actress but I enjoyed the milieu and it transfers to readers tactilely.
A musician from a recently disbanded, famous rock group is the victim with an estranged wife, a few former girlfriends, admiring cast members, and a house recently bought from the man renting them the dormitory, office, and rehearsal spaces.
Charles befriends and bounces murder theories off of him in his upstairs suite,
Charless exwife, whom he loves enough to keep away from his promiscuity, attends his show.
They take a trip to picturesque river country, suggested by a theatre matron, A whole other tone of intrigue occurs in that atmosphere, The denouement is unrelated to the other plots, I would have found it enthralling, were it not tossed into the finale, Too careful about spoiling it Simon Brett carved no opportunity to buildup and let simmer that exciting tack.
Four unmatched plots were hammered together, However, this is a massive improvement on the first mystery and I will read the third, when I acquire a copy.
sitelinkSo Much Blood is thend book in sitelinkSimon Brett mystery series featuring struggling actor Charles Paris.
I've enjoyed a few of the books in this series already but have determined to work through them in order from now on.
Paris takes a job at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival when an opening comes up, He decides to perform his one man show featuring the works of English poet / humorist Thomas Hood, He is staying with the Derby University Dramatic Society yup, DUDS who are also performing in the same theater.
While practicing their play Mary Queen of Sots, one of the actors is killed when one of the fake knives turns out to be a real knife.
Paris thinks that, in fact, it might not have been an accident and for some reason that Willy Mariello was murdered.
Thus begins a somewhat halfhearted investigation by Paris, trying to determine if Mariello was murdered, by whom and for what reason.
Along the way he is assisted by the owner of the building where the DUDS are residing, one Laird James Milne and also his lawyer friend Gerald Venables a crime enthusiast.
James also has an affair with beautiful young actress, Anna, Let it be known that Charles is still married to France but in an on again / off again relationship
The story follows Paris's investigation.
He has a couple of suspects but can find nothing specific to solve the case, Even Anna comes under his scrutiny, What is also interesting is Paris's preparation and performance of his one man play, It adds a nice quality to the story, making it more than just a murder mystery,
Paris is an interesting character middleaged, disappointed in his acting career, a bit of a drunk and womanizer, but thoughtful and creative.
It's a wandering story and mild, but still entertaining and a wellcrafted mystery, Most enjoyable. Brett has createdexcellent mystery series Charles Paris, Fethering Mysteries and Mrs, Pargeter, each different and unique, He's well worth checking out,Not quite divorced Actor Charles Paris comes to do his one man show at the Edinburgh fringe festival.
During a oneonone acting exercise on truth with theater students a handsome young man confides to him that he is afraid of someone in the company.
Very soon after that the young man is killed in an accident involving what should have been prop knives, only one was all too real.
Was it truly an accident
The one good thing this book did was to expose me to Thomas Hood and to make me want to go read his works.
Brett's protagonist, Charles Paris wasn't terribly endearing to me, I don't actively dislike him, but he doesn't have very much charisma, Still, an interesting twist or three make this a good read, Charles Paris returns again, in a fringe show at the Edinburgh Festival, with another nubile girl to provoke him, and his accommodating wife to console him, and a gory murder to challenge him in So Much Blood.
It's possible that my mental picture of Bill Nighy as Charles increases my enjoyment of these books, but this is a very easytoread whodunnit, set against the backdrop of the Edinburgh Fringe, at which Charles not yet the rather faded actor he becomes revives his one man show based on the poems of Thomas Hood.
He's filling a gap in the programme of the Derby University Dramatic Society DUDS, and witnesses the notasaccidentalasitseemed stabbing of one of the cast, which reignites his amateur sleuthing tendencies.
I guessed the murderer early on, though I didn't quite guess the motive such as it was.
Overall, a light read with some very amusing moments, Charles Paris is an actor in England, He has moderate success has been on stage and screen, He also is an amateur sleuth, In this book Charles is going to do a oneman show at a festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, When one of the actors is "accidentally" stabbed during a rehearsal, Charles can't help himself, He doesn't believe the death was a tragic accident, so he becomes somewhat of a Holmes character, trying to decide who would have the motive to kill the unlikable young man.
He becomes entangled with a young actress much younger than him, But he can't rule her out as a suspect, It is an okay book, Charles is a sympathetic character, Mildly entertaining but worth reading perhaps much like Charles's Fringe show itself!, Charles ends up in Edinburgh for the film festival due to a show having been cancelled last minute and being able to fill in with his onemad show about the poet Thomas Hood.
He once again gets involved with a much younger woman before realizing it's a bad idea .
Fortunately, this book got off to a better start than the previous Paris book, Withinpages I read the hardcover that was published before ISBNs were a thing a musician/actor named Willy has been killed although police decide it's an accident he was killed with a real knife that should have been a prop knife.
Charles has a gut feeling that it was intentional murder, and he sets out to learn more, Unfortunately his Watson from bookGerald Venable can't come up for a few days, so Charles decides that the professor living upstairs will do just fine.
It's a bit slow and more of a character study than a thriller but I enjoyed the characters and how outrageous they all were.
.
“So Much Blood” is set in Edinburgh! The vibrancy of a Scottish fringe festival is brighter, than narrating about how poor Charles was in his London bedsit.
Secondly, we watch Charles as a
professional actor! Plots build around preparation for a oneman play he wrote and will perform.
This novel is named after it,
He is drawn plausibly into solving a murder, after it occurs in front of all who were in a rehearsal space.
I further applaud the abundance of suspects, which ensures we cant hastily identify a killer, We follow a particularly bitter university student a lot of the time but explosive personalities abound among young, untried theatre rats! I am not an actress but I enjoyed the milieu and it transfers to readers tactilely.
A musician from a recently disbanded, famous rock group is the victim with an estranged wife, a few former girlfriends, admiring cast members, and a house recently bought from the man renting them the dormitory, office, and rehearsal spaces.
Charles befriends and bounces murder theories off of him in his upstairs suite,
Charless exwife, whom he loves enough to keep away from his promiscuity, attends his show.
They take a trip to picturesque river country, suggested by a theatre matron, A whole other tone of intrigue occurs in that atmosphere, The denouement is unrelated to the other plots, I would have found it enthralling, were it not tossed into the finale, Too careful about spoiling it Simon Brett carved no opportunity to buildup and let simmer that exciting tack.
Four unmatched plots were hammered together, However, this is a massive improvement on the first mystery and I will read the third, when I acquire a copy.
sitelinkSo Much Blood is thend book in sitelinkSimon Brett mystery series featuring struggling actor Charles Paris.
I've enjoyed a few of the books in this series already but have determined to work through them in order from now on.
Paris takes a job at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival when an opening comes up, He decides to perform his one man show featuring the works of English poet / humorist Thomas Hood, He is staying with the Derby University Dramatic Society yup, DUDS who are also performing in the same theater.
While practicing their play Mary Queen of Sots, one of the actors is killed when one of the fake knives turns out to be a real knife.
Paris thinks that, in fact, it might not have been an accident and for some reason that Willy Mariello was murdered.
Thus begins a somewhat halfhearted investigation by Paris, trying to determine if Mariello was murdered, by whom and for what reason.
Along the way he is assisted by the owner of the building where the DUDS are residing, one Laird James Milne and also his lawyer friend Gerald Venables a crime enthusiast.
James also has an affair with beautiful young actress, Anna, Let it be known that Charles is still married to France but in an on again / off again relationship
The story follows Paris's investigation.
He has a couple of suspects but can find nothing specific to solve the case, Even Anna comes under his scrutiny, What is also interesting is Paris's preparation and performance of his one man play, It adds a nice quality to the story, making it more than just a murder mystery,
Paris is an interesting character middleaged, disappointed in his acting career, a bit of a drunk and womanizer, but thoughtful and creative.
It's a wandering story and mild, but still entertaining and a wellcrafted mystery, Most enjoyable. Brett has createdexcellent mystery series Charles Paris, Fethering Mysteries and Mrs, Pargeter, each different and unique, He's well worth checking out,Not quite divorced Actor Charles Paris comes to do his one man show at the Edinburgh fringe festival.
During a oneonone acting exercise on truth with theater students a handsome young man confides to him that he is afraid of someone in the company.
Very soon after that the young man is killed in an accident involving what should have been prop knives, only one was all too real.
Was it truly an accident
The one good thing this book did was to expose me to Thomas Hood and to make me want to go read his works.
Brett's protagonist, Charles Paris wasn't terribly endearing to me, I don't actively dislike him, but he doesn't have very much charisma, Still, an interesting twist or three make this a good read, Charles Paris returns again, in a fringe show at the Edinburgh Festival, with another nubile girl to provoke him, and his accommodating wife to console him, and a gory murder to challenge him in So Much Blood.
Edinburgh and the Festival are both background and foreground with Charles, flitting between a revisualized Midsummer Night's Dream, a mixedmedia satire, a latenight revue, and his own oneman show on Thomas Hoodand with a fading pop star as the first victim, a bomb scare in Holyrood Palace, and a suicide leap from the top of the Rock.
Charles copes splendidly with the Festival, with his affair with the girl with the navy eyes, and with a most complex murder investigation.
It's possible that my mental picture of Bill Nighy as Charles increases my enjoyment of these books, but this is a very easytoread whodunnit, set against the backdrop of the Edinburgh Fringe, at which Charles not yet the rather faded actor he becomes revives his one man show based on the poems of Thomas Hood.
He's filling a gap in the programme of the Derby University Dramatic Society DUDS, and witnesses the notasaccidentalasitseemed stabbing of one of the cast, which reignites his amateur sleuthing tendencies.
I guessed the murderer early on, though I didn't quite guess the motive such as it was.
Overall, a light read with some very amusing moments, Charles Paris is an actor in England, He has moderate success has been on stage and screen, He also is an amateur sleuth, In this book Charles is going to do a oneman show at a festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, When one of the actors is "accidentally" stabbed during a rehearsal, Charles can't help himself, He doesn't believe the death was a tragic accident, so he becomes somewhat of a Holmes character, trying to decide who would have the motive to kill the unlikable young man.
He becomes entangled with a young actress much younger than him, But he can't rule her out as a suspect, It is an okay book, Charles is a sympathetic character, Mildly entertaining but worth reading perhaps much like Charles's Fringe show itself!, Charles ends up in Edinburgh for the film festival due to a show having been cancelled last minute and being able to fill in with his onemad show about the poet Thomas Hood.
He once again gets involved with a much younger woman before realizing it's a bad idea .
Fortunately, this book got off to a better start than the previous Paris book, Withinpages I read the hardcover that was published before ISBNs were a thing a musician/actor named Willy has been killed although police decide it's an accident he was killed with a real knife that should have been a prop knife.
Charles has a gut feeling that it was intentional murder, and he sets out to learn more, Unfortunately his Watson from bookGerald Venable can't come up for a few days, so Charles decides that the professor living upstairs will do just fine.
It's a bit slow and more of a character study than a thriller but I enjoyed the characters and how outrageous they all were.
.