The Killer In The Choir

Simon Brett has written the 19th book in what is referred to as the Fethering series.  The Killer in the Choir is set in the town of Fethering and features two older divorced women, neighbors who have a prickly relationship and cool personalities, but seem to work together to solve crimes in the village.

In this cozy mystery, Carole and Jude are neighbors who have a strange or is strand friendship.  Jude is a practicing healer and Carole is just a lonely woman, who is relatively new to the village and keeps to herself.  But is odd in that she likes to solve crimes.  There is the local pub where the ladies go to meet the neighbors and the proprietor and trade gossip.  There are the locals, who in this case are members of the church choir and also come to the pub for drinks.

When the wealthy Leonard Mallet dies under unusual circumstances, Carole cannot accept that it could just be an accident.  She doggedly tries to investigate it as a murder.  When his wife, who presents herself as a survivor of domestic abuse, is also killed then Jude and Carole are both independently investigating these deaths.  Their relationship seems to be not be friendly this time and they are sharing some information but not working in tandem. Both seem to be secretive and not friendly in this mystery, but I do have the background to know if there has been a rift developing.

Though this is a cozy mystery it deals with some very serious topics, domestic violence, child abuse and PTSD.  Not that it really gets involved with these topics they are mentioned and worked into the alibis and character development of the suspects. For a short novel there is quite a bit there.

Not one of my favorite mystery novels.  This is the first one I have read in this series, so maybe I am missing the closeness I should feel for the characters that would have developed if I had read these from the beginning.  But I do not get a feeling of closeness to the main characters, they seem cold and removed and so the mystery lacks in warmth and believability for me.  Also did not get the feeling that I want to get to know these protagonists so I will not go back to start at the beginning of this series.