Simon Brett (born 28 October 1945 in Worcester Park, Surrey, England) is a prolific writer of whodunnits. The son of a chartered surveyor, he was educated at Dulwich College and Wadham College, Oxford, where he got a first-class honours degree in English. He then joined the BBC as a trainee and worked for BBC Radio and London Weekend Television before devoting most of his time to writing from the late 1970s. He is married with three children and lives in Arundel, West Sussex, England. He has been the president of the Detection Club since 2000.Mystery writing career
Brett has written three series of detective novels. Most of these novels are in the "Golden Age" tradition of detective fiction, entertaining the reader through humour, eccentric characters and intricate plot twists. He has also written several mystery plays and some non-series novels, of which A Shock to the System (1984) is probably best known due to the filmed version starring Michael Caine as the business executive who takes revenge after being passed over for promotion.
Charles Paris
Charles Paris is an unhappily separated (but not divorced, more than 30 years on), moderately-successful actor with a slight drinking problem who gets entangled in all sorts of crimes, and finds himself in the role of unwilling amateur detective. There are 17 novels featuring this character and on his website Simon has announced his intention to return to Charles with an 18th mystery entitled A Decent Interval. These are the Audiobooks for the Charles Paris Series.
- Cast, In Order of Disappearance (1975)
- So Much Blood (1976)
- Star Trap (1977)
- An Amateur Corpse (1978)
- A Comedian Dies (1979)
- The Dead Side of the Mic (1980)
- Situation Tragedy (1981)
- Murder Unprompted (1982)
- Murder in the Title (1983)
- Not Dead, Only Resting (1984)
- Dead Giveaway (1985)
- What Bloody Man Is That? (1987)
- A Series of Murders (1989)
- Corporate Bodies (1991)
- A Reconstructed Corpse (1993)
- Sicken and So Die (1995)
- Dead Room Farce (1998)
- A Decent Interval (2013)
Cast, In Order of Disappearance and So Much Blood were both adapted as serials for BBC Radio 2 with Francis Matthews in the lead role in the 1980s.
More recently, Bill Nighy has played Paris in a series of BBC Radio productions. The first, an adaptation of So Much Blood for the Saturday Play in 1999, was recorded on location at its Edinburgh Fringe setting. A Series of Murders followed as another Saturday Play in 2004, leading into a number of half-hour serials which began with Sicken and So Die (2006) and continued with Murder Unprompted (2007) and The Dead Side of the Mike (2008), with So Much Blood apparently happening between the last two serials. These serials have all been updated, and adapted to deal with continuity problems caused by the adaptations being made out of order compared with the books, with later adaptations featuring more far-ranging changes to the actual mystery.
Cast In Order of Disappearance, again starring Nighy as Paris, began airing on Friday 29 January 2010 on BBC Radio 4. On 26 February, its slot was taken for three weeks by an original series from Brett, while a three-hour I Did It My Way programme showcasing Brett's work was rebroadcast by BBC Radio 7 on Saturday 20 February, including a repeat of A Series of Murders.
This was followed by "Murder in the Title" (2010) which aired weekly from November 22 to December 13, 2010. Most recently, Nighy returned to the role in "A Reconstructed Corpse" (2012). Other recurring cast members include Jon Glover as Charles's agent "Maurice"; and Suzanne Burden as his estranged wife "Frances". On December 5, 2012 a 4 part adaptation of "An Amateur Corpse" began on Radio 4 - Nighy and Burden again play Charles and Frances.
Epub versions of the books are available at the attached link
Replies
Thank you, never heard of these, but sound interesting. What a nice present to find tonight.
You are very welcome!
Thanks for sharing
Thanks, It took me a while to find it myself
T*H*A*N*K Y*O*U!! It’s a great series. I’ve been searching for ‘A Decent Interval’ on audio for a while!