Reading the Detectives discussion

Welcome to our April/May 24 buddy read of A Nice Class of Corpse by Simon Brett. The first in the Mrs Pargeter series, this was first published in 1986.

The Devereux is a nice residential hotel which caters for a nice class of guest. But the arrival of Mrs Pargeter, an attractive widow, seems to act as a catalyst of disaster for everyone connected with the hotel. On the morning after her arrival, the corpse of one of the frailer residents is found at the foot of the main staircase, and shortly after that another death shakes the gentility of the hotel. Deciding to investigate herself, Mrs Pargeter discovers that more than one person in the Devereux has a motive for murder.

Please feel free to post spoilers in this thread.

I didn't re-read this but I know I enjoyed it the first time, which was several years ago. I can't remember exactly what I know about Mrs Pargeter and her late husband from this book vs others in the series so I thought I should stay in the spoiler thread.

I like that Mrs. Pargeter is Not Young but also that she is a generously sized woman and never lets anyone make her feel bad about that.

Someone posted on the other thread they like the series more as it goes on, and I think I felt that way initially - but then I got tired of it and found the series formulaic which is why I decided not to re-read right now.

I rather enjoyed this-not great, but good enough that I would like to continue and see if it gets stronger going forward. I thought the ending a bit lame-solved by reading the murderer's diary-and didn't think the diary style suited the Colonel's personality. However I'm enjoying the 67 year old still-in-her-prime sleuth and look forward to the next one.