Fethering Village Mysteries

Very little disturbs the ordered calm of Fethering, a pleasingly self-contained retirement town on England's southern coast. Which is precisely why Carole Seddon, who has outlived both her husband and her career at the Home Office, has chosen to reside there. So the last thing Carole expects to encounter in Fethering is a new neighbour with but one name and an obviously colourful past.

Recently retired, Carole Seddon is residing in Fethering in the cottage she purchased with her ex-husband. There she maintains a quiet and sensible life with the companionship of Gulliver, her Labrador retriever. But everything changes when she and Gulliver, while taking their daily constitutional, find a corpse on the beach. What's more, there are two wounds on its neck. The body mysteriously disappears and the police dismiss Carole as a befuddled middle-aged woman.

It wasn't the rain that upset Carole Seddon during her walk on the West Sussex Downs. It wasn't the dilapidated barn in which she was forced to seek shelter. No, what upset her most was the human skeleton she discovered there.... So begins the second investigation for straitlaced Carole and her more laid-back neighbour Jude. This time their enquiries take them away from Fethering to the small download hamlet of Weldsham, where gossips quickly identify the corpse as Tamsin Lutteridge, a young woman who had disappeared from the village months before....

It isn't the rain that upsets Carole Seddon during her walk on the West Sussex Downs. It isn't the dilapidated barn in which she is forced to seek shelter. No, what upsets her is the human skeleton she discovers there, neatly packed into two blue fertilizer bags.

Amateur sleuths Jude and Carole take on their third case when a terrible discovery is made in the cellar of a grand old house. Grant and Kim Roxby had hoped that their first dinner party at Pelling House would make an impression with their new neighbours. And the next day it's certainly the talk of the town. For their guests - including the couple's old friend Jude - had been enjoying a pleasant meal before they were rudely interrupted by a gruesome discovery. A human torso hidden in the cellar.

A dinner party at an English mansion with some stuffy, not-very-close friends is not exactly Jude's cup of tea. But the practically mummified torso of a woman found in the cellar is much more up Jude's alley. Once again, the two middle-aged women from Fethering, Jude and her reluctant neighbor, Carole, find themselves embroiled in another puzzling whodunit.

The Elizabethan house of Bracketts is about to be turned into a museum. It had once been the home of the celebrated poet Esmund Chadleigh and is to become a shrine to his life and poetry - but the transition is far from smooth. Carole Seddon had been reluctant to join the Bracketts Board, and now she realises that she should have listened to her instinct. The simmering tension between the board members is about to boil over. A human skeleton is discovered in the kitchen garden, and before too long there is a second body, not yet cold.

The life of noted man of letters Esmond Chadleigh is celebrated in the halls of Bracketts House, though most of his work remains out of print, leaving Bracketts out of funds. Carole Seddon can keep Bracketts running, in exchange for assistance on her Chadleigh biography. But the trustees are afraid the biographer is only interested in rooting out the skeletons in Chadleigh's closet, especially after uncovering one in his garden.

The Hopwicke Country House Hotel, owned by Jude's glamorous friend Suzy Longthorne, is to host an event for the all-male society the Pillars of Sussex. On the night, Jude helps Suzy serve dinner, and in the early hours of the morning they watch with relief as the guests drag themselves to their beds. The next morning, one young solicitor does not come down for breakfast. Jude heads for Nigel Ackford's room, presuming he is feeling the effects of the night before. It soon becomes apparent, however, that Nigel has been spared his hangover....

The Hopwicke Country House Hotel once hosted a rich clientele. But hard times have forced Suzy Longthorne to open her doors to the Pillars of Sussex, a group of elitist businessmen. Suzy recruits Jude to help out, but the next morning, Jude discovers the body of a supposed initiate of the Pillars hanging from the beam of a bed. The police rule the death a suicide. The Pillars deny that the victim was an initiate. Jude knows both parties have something to hide, and she's determined to uncover the truth.

Carole is thrilled with the coming wedding of her once-estranged son, Stephen. She finds it odd, though, that the parents of the bride have no interest in arranging the wedding, and seem terrified at the prospect of publicizing it. Things turn deadly intriguing when the father of the bride disappears at the engagement party, only to be found brutally murdered the following morn.

Carole Seddon's son is soon to be married to Gaby. But Marie and Harold Martin seem desperate to keep plans for their daughter's big day as low-key as possible. After a quiet engagement party, Harold disappears...only to be found dead the next day in a burnt out car in Epping Forest. Carole discovers that the Martins are hiding secrets that can be traced back 30 years, to the murder of Marie's best friend. Now the girl's killer has been released from prison and is back in his old stomping ground.

When Jude pays a visit to Long Bamber Stables - to meet an unusual new client and his owner, Sonia Dalrymple - she does not expect to stumble across a man laying in the darkness. Co-owner of the stables Walter Fleet has been viciously stabbed to death, and Jude suspects she may have arrived only seconds after his murder. Unable to resist a mystery, friends Jude and Carole begin to make discreet enquiries.

Fethering's favorite sleuths are at it again. Jude and Carole Seddon find themselves in the midst of some horseplay after stumbling upon the body of ex-equestrian Walter Fleet at Long Bamber Stables. The police attribute the stabbing death to the mysterious "Horse Ripper," who's been mutilating mares across West Sussex and who Walter obviously caught in the act.

When Carole goes for a trim at Connie’s Clip Joint, she doesn’t expect to find herself at the scene of a murder. But in the back room, strangled by the lead of a hairdryer, sits Connie’s young assistant Kyra. Carole and her sleuthing friend Jude are soon enjoying some tactical snooping, and it seems that Fethering’s fingers are pointing at Kyra’s boyfriend Nathan, who has disappeared. As our discreet lady detectives decide there are only so many haircuts they can have for the sake of neighbourhood crime-solving, they also realise that this is no cut-and-dried case....

Jude has never been averse to a bit of a flutter; her friend Carole, on the other hand, thinks that the local betting shop is a den of iniquity. But when Jude stumbles upon the body of a Polish immigrant, Tadeusz Jankowski, the race is on to find his killer. The odds aren’t looking good. No one seems to know anything about the mysterious Tadeusz - even his sister can’t shed any light on what he was doing in Fethering.

Fethering residents Jude and Carole get more than they bargained for when a meal in their local pub leaves everyone with food poisoning. When a series of disasters start to befall the business it looks like it could be the end of the road for the Crown and Anchor. The two amateur detectives wonder if it might just be more than a run of bad luck. When a young man is found in the kitchen with a knife through his heart, Carole and Jude swing into action. There's a killer on the loose, and our lady sleuths need to uncover who it is before it's last orders for the pub - and themselves.

Carole Seddon hates Christmas - it all seems rather a waste of time. So when her best friend, Jude, drags her along to go shopping at a local store called Gallimaufry, she can feel her inner Scrooge knocking. Then Gallimaufry is burnt down, and a body is discovered. It seems like a tragic accident, but it’s not natural causes when a gun is involved. With a host of suspicious characters - the infamous womanizer Ricky Le Bonnier; Piers Duncton, an unfunny comedy writer; and Anna Carter, the lonely dog walker - the lady detectives know they have their work cut out for them.

The affluent seaside resort of Smalting is unaccustomed to crime. So when human remains are found beneath the floorboards of a beach hut, the community is awash with suspicion. Amateur sleuths Carole Seddon and best friend Jude are drawn into the mystery, and their suspicion quickly falls on attractive Philly Rose, a young Londoner newly arrived in the area, whose boyfriend has recently vanished.

Invited to a Private View of the work of controversial artist Denzil Willoughby, the good citizens of Fethering are not quite sure what to expect. And it certainly turns out to be a lively affair, culminating in a confrontation between Willoughby and his ex-lover, followed by a heated argument with the gallery owner and a rival artist. But what no one could have anticipated was that the evening would end in sudden, violent death.