Charles Paris Books In Order

Charles Paris Books In Publication Order

  1. Cast in Order of Disappearance (1975)
  2. So Much Blood (1976)
  3. Star Trap (1977)
  4. An Amateur Corpse (1978)
  5. A Comedian Dies (1979)
  6. Dead Side Of The Mike / Mic (1980)
  7. Situation Tragedy (1981)
  8. Murder Unprompted (1982)
  9. Murder in the Title (1983)
  10. Not Dead, Only Resting (1984)
  11. DeadGiveaway (1985)
  12. What Bloody Man is That? (1987)
  13. A Series of Murders (1989)
  14. Corporate Bodies (1991)
  15. A Reconstructed Corpse (1993)
  16. Sicken and So Die (1996)
  17. Dead Room Farce (1997)
  18. A Decent Interval (2013)
  19. The Cinderella Killer (2014)
  20. A Deadly Habit (2018)

Charles Paris Book Covers

Charles Paris Books Overview

Cast in Order of Disappearance

Who killed Marius Steen, the theatrical tycoon with a fortune to leave his young mistress Jacqui? And who killed Bill Sweet, the shady blackmailer with a supply of compromising photographs? Charles Paris, a middle aged actor who keeps going on booze and women, takes to detection, by assuming a variety of roles, among them that of a Scotland Yard Detective Sergeant, and the results are both comic and dramatic. As the mythical McWhirter of the Yard, he actually precipitates the crime; as one of the blackmailer’s victims, he finds himself in bed with the blackmailer s wife; as a small part player in a horror film The Zombie Walks, he gets shot at by a murderer. And he arrives at the solution by way of the petrol crisis and an abortive attack of the German measles. It s a light hearted frolic that is, at the same time, a beautifully ingenious puzzle, and it fizzes with fun and wit.

So Much Blood

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. Edinburgh and the Festival are both background and foreground with Charles flitting between a ‘revisualised’ Midsummer Night’s Dream, a ‘mixed-media satire’, a late-night revue, and his own one-man show on Thomas Hood-and 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.

Star Trap

Text for Author Bio: Simon Brett is a former radio and television comedy producer, who has been writing full time for more than twenty years. Creator of the Charles Parks, Mrs. Pargeter and Feathering series of mysteries, his psychological thriller, A Shock to the System was filmed, starring Michael Caine. Married, with three children, he lives in an Agatha Christie style village in West Sussex, England. Text for Book Description: Simon Brett is back with one of his best theater inspired detective novels. Though the target for murder is an odious theater and television star, actor/detective Charles Paris finds that the main character is behind the strange happenings backstage, including the rehearsal pianist being shot in the hand, and an actor falling and breaking his leg. Why does the star want to sabotage his show? The answer is one much more human than it first appears.

An Amateur Corpse

An Amateur Corpse is another fascinating Simon Brett mystery set in the backdrop of theater. Charles Paris is a part-time detective and professional actor, drawn into the affairs of an amateur theater company. Charles’s friend Hugo’s wife is murdered, and Hugo is charged with the crime. Now, Paris takes on the case personally. The solution to the mystery lies in a clever double alibi. An Amateur Corpse is an absorbing, and entertaining account of theatrical backstaging, backscratching and backbiting.

A Comedian Dies

Charles Paris, middle aged actor turned amateur sleuth, is vacationing at a small English seaside town. Irresistibly drawn to anything theatrical, Charles seeks entertainment at the local music hall and endures a series of not so wonderful vaudeville acts in the hope that the man given star billing will be worth watching. But when Bill Peaky comes on stage with his electric guitar and grasps the microphone, he instantly drops dead, apparently due to faulty wiring of the stage equipment. It looks like an accident, but Charles is not so sure, and starts to find out more about the people in the other acts on the bill: Janine, the pretty dancer who disappears; Chox Morton, seedy and unduly nervous; and Lennie Barber, a one time star comedian trying to make a comeback. The more Charles investigates, the more suspects turn up.

Dead Side Of The Mike / Mic

Murder at the BBC? It’s almost unimaginable. When Andrea Gower, the beautiful studio manager is murdered, the producer s only concern is the dead air emanating from the transmitter. But Charles Paris, the now famous actor/detective has come to Broadcasting House to give a talk, and ends up as a mystery voice on a showbiz quiz show. Paris has to wallow through layers of BBC scandal, and uncovers a complicated fraud with clues concealed in seemingly innocent announcements. These clues lead to a trap that is nearly the end of Mr. Paris.

Situation Tragedy

West End Television are planning a new situation comedy series, to be called The Struttters. From the outset, things go horribly wrong with the new series. Odd accidents if they are accidents remove, one by one, the sharp tongued Production Assistant, the self effacing script writer, the hearty Floor Manager. Death even takes from us the revolting Yorkshire terrier, Co*cky, who’s the idol of the indestructible Dame Aurelia Howarth, theatrical star for fifty years.

There s no discernible pattern in all this, but Simon Brett s regular sleuth, the bit player Charles Paris, is confidently on the trail of another mass murderer. But the bizarre solution, brilliantly led up to, surprises even him.

Murder Unprompted

Here is another of Simon Brett’s fascinating blends of crime and backstage drama. This time he provides what might be described as the biography of a play from the cradle to the grave. Murder Unprompted takes you from the author, to an unscrupulous producer, to the theater itself, to director, to cast including Mr. Brett s bit player detective, Charles Paris. But trouble starts the first night. The star can t remember his lines, and worse he s shot dead on stage. Paris takes on not only his usual role of detective, but lead of the play as well…
a role that will lead him to the perpetrators of the crime. Murder Unprompted will delight theater buffs as well as all lovers of mystery.

Murder in the Title

Simon Brett again takes us behind the scenes in a back stage drama of crime and detection. This time it’s the world of provincial rep, with an historic theatre threatened with closure by unscrupulous property developers. And the theatre management seems to be digging its own grave: a deplorable choice of current productions; a painfully incompetent director; bizarre accidents happening on stage. Charles, as Mr. Brett s readers know, is an amateur detective and a professional actor. As an actor his career is still on the way down, with not much further to go. But as a detective he goes from strength to strength. He soon establishes that someone is deliberately sabotaging the company. All this culminates in a spectacular suicide. Or is it murder, as Charles Paris suspects?

Not Dead, Only Resting

Tristam Gowers and Yves Lafeu have the flamboyance of stage matinee idols, but currently they are running a very smart restaurant, Tryst, which is much patronized by top people in the theatrical profession. Which means it’s not Charles Paris s usual ambience, but this small part player, who s more successful as an amateur detective than as professional actor, is the guest tonight of another fascinating duo, William Bartlemas and Kevin O Rourke, wealthy collectors of theatrical memorabilia. And he is in at the death: the gruesome murder of Yves. It seems to be an open and shut case. Tristam caught the night boat to France within hours of a spectacular public quarrel with Yves over a pretty youth, and now he has disappeared. But of course there s much more to it than that: much more, as Charles discovers when he begins to investigate.

DeadGiveaway

Poor Charles Paris: as an actor, which is his chosen profession, he is reaching rock bottom; but as a detective, the role he is continually called upon to play, he’s brilliant, as he demonstrates again in his latest adventure. He is now reaching the lowest form of showbiz life, the television give away panel game. And when he and his vast audience least expect it, there s a murder in the studio, right in front of the cameras. Once again, Simon Brett reveals his mastery as he unravels a complex mystery and revels in the humour of this showbiz world.

What Bloody Man is That?

Charles Paris is on his way up again, career wise. No longer resting and no longer just a corpse in a cupboard, he blossoms in the play dreaded by superstitious theatre folk, who will not even speak its name: the Scottish play Macbeth. It’s only in the provincial rep, but you have to start or re start somewhere. And his agent has promised that though what s offered is not much of a part, other good parts are in the offing . By which perhaps is not meant precisely what happens: that Charles finds himself doubling almost every role in the play that isn t held by the three principals. And as for the principals, they could hardly be more ill sorted. Macbeth is played by George Birkitt, the TV game show personality whom we met in Dead Giveaway. Lady Macbeth comes straight from Stratford: an intense young woman with Method in her madness. And Duncan is that notorious old ham, Warnock Belvedere, who feels that he s in the tradition of great acto managers. With such a cast, sparks are bound to fly. It s not long before death strikes in the night. And Charles Paris takes on the role of private eye

A Series of Murders

Charles Paris is in clover. He has been contracted for three whole months to play brainless bobby Sergeant Clump, foil to the charismatic amateur sleuth, Stanislas Braid, in a TV series of that name. Recourse to the Bell’s is still needed, however, to get him through a day s filming one made all the more arduous by the pompous posturings of the show s star, and the constant outraged interruptions of the ancient author whose detective novels are being adapted. Indeed, there is plenty of friction about, but when a particularly unpromising actress is killed, crushed to death, there seems no reason to doubt it was an accident except in Charles s mind. Leaving behind a trail of broken resolutions and empty bottles, Charles indulges in some sleuthing of his own. He may lack the panache of the suave Stanislas Braid, but unlike the great detective the danger Paris encounters is only too real. A Series of Murders is a witty and delightful addition to Simon Brett s popular series.

Corporate Bodies

Hired to operate a forklift in a corporate video, struggling actor and English sleuth Charles Paris finds the job complicated when a girl on the set is crushed to death by the machine.

A Reconstructed Corpse

Playing the missing Martin Earnshaw on a true crime television program, actor detective Charles Paris believes his career has hit a new low and begins to suspect that the production team is orchestrating its own subject material. PW.

Sicken and So Die

Things are looking up for struggling actor Charles Paris. He’s landed a plum role in a production of ‘Twelfth Night’, forged a reconciliation with his wife and even cut back on his favorite comfort liberal shots of Scotch whiskey. But when the play’s director falls mysteriously ill, a replacement with a vision takes the reins and turns the production into a farce. Charles’s life takes a turn for the worse as he returns to the bottle and loses touch with his wife but it’s the murder of a fellow thespian that makes him get hold of himself and take on the role of detective.

Dead Room Farce

Charles Paris has taken a part in the new farce, Not On Your Wife! which may make a West End run. Rehearsals have gone well, the laughs are plenty, and there’s the attraction of Cookie Stone. But it’s not long before a darker mood sets in: Charles’ old friend Mark has a drinking problem that amounts to a death wish. And it’s not the drink that kills Mark, it’s someone in the cast…