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 of Fedborough. 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.
Strait-laced Carole and her laid back neighbour Jude return in the second of Simon Brett's Fethering Series. It wasn't the rain that upset during Carole Seddon during her walk on the West Sussex Downs. It wasn't the dilapidated barn in which she took shelter. No, what upset her was the human skeleton she discovered there... So begins the second investigation for Carole and her neighbour Jude. This time their enquires take them away from Fethering to the small hamlet of Weldisham.
Very little disturbs the ordered calm of Fethering, a self-contained retirement settlement on England's southern coast. Which is precisely why Carole Seddon 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. 'Jude' was not really Fethering . . . but neither was the body Carole found on the beach. A body, it has to be said, that has disappeared by the time the police arrive. Only Jude is ready to believe what her neighbour says she saw...
All bets are on when there's a body found at the bookies...When Jude wanders into Fethering's local bookies she has no idea that she will shortly be investigating the murder of Polish immigrant Tadeusz Jankowski. With her partner in crime, friend and next-door-neighbour Carole, she's determined to discover who killed him - and why? There are several favourites in the running: A mysterious woman in the bookies? The charming lecturer at the university? Or the mysterious attacker who Jude only narrowly escapes from?
Fethering's favorite sleuths are at it again as 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. But considering Walter's track record out of the saddle, Jude and Carole find that there are plenty of suspects- including Walter's put-upon wife...