Product Description

When healer Jude pays a visit to Long Bamber Stables one evening - to meet her unusually equine 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.

Walter leaves behind a cynical wife who shows no desire to mourn his departing. Meanwhile, a horse hand appears to be more of a danger than a help and Sonia Dalrymple seems to be concealing a deeply troubling secret. Unable to resist a mystery, sleuthing friends Jude and Carole begin to make discreet enquiries.

It soon becomes clear that Long Bamber Stables is a hotbed of dangerous passions, murderous rivalries and hidden truths . . . and this horsing community will do anything to protect their reputations.

‘Murder most enjoyable . . . An author who never takes himself that seriously, and for whom any fictional murder can frequently form part of the entertainment industry’ COLIN DEXTER, The Oldie

‘One of the exceptional detective story writers around’ Telegraph

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #308209 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 300 pages

The Times
'He writes the kind of good whodunnits that could have been written 50 years ago.'

The Times
'He takes care with words and language; he plots meticulously'

The Times
'he does not batter the reader with an excess of gore, grim realism, social comment, sexual detail or psychological insight'

Customer Reviews

Extraordinary Story Telling

Many mystery writers love to make things easy for themselves. They make the detective be a member of the police, a person hired by the victim's family, or the victim herself or himself. The detective is endowed with fascinating, superhuman, characteristics that are worth the price of the book alone. Then, the author will often throw in some gruesome type of crime to build up interest. Finally, the plot will be convoluted . . . and punctuated with intriguing action. A book like that will be viewed as a superior resource by many readers.

Simon Brett, however, takes a much harder route. His detectives in this book (and in the Fethering mysteries series) are as-different-as-night-and-day neighbors, Carole Seddon (a divorced, shy Home Office retiree) and Jude (a no-last-name "alternative healer" using energy fields). Carole and Jude have no official status as detectives . . . but solve the mystery anyway. This detective approach requires great writing, deft plotting, and brilliant imagination. Read this book and admire this remarkable work!

As the book opens, Jude has been invited to treat a horse. This is a strange request for Jude . . . but one of her well-to-do human clients, Sonia Dalrymple, is paying so Jude is willing to give this a try. Carole agrees to tag along. Once at the stables, Sonia isn't there. When Jude checks around, she finds the body of a dead man, the stable's owner Walter Fleet, with his blood just cooling. A noise in the distance makes Jude think that the murderer may just be leaving. Carole snoops around while they wait for the police and finds signs that someone has been sleeping in the stables.

What's going on? It's not clear. In the background, someone has been mysteriously destroying mares in violent rampages. Might Fleet have surprised the horse assailant?

Carole and Jude learn that Fleet had annoyed a lot of people, mostly the husbands of the women he flirted with. There's also another mysterious healer in the background, Donal, who is willing to drop hints about what might be going on if you buy him enough whiskey before he takes off.

Carole finds herself being more of an investigator than usual. She interviews a source who works as a grocery store cashier. Casual contacts turn up more information.

Ugly secrets turn out to be hidden in the back rooms of several local marriages. Those secrets start to tumble out before the pressure of the two neighbors . . . and begin to reveal the shape of the crime.

Enjoy!

Fethering Mysteries Just Keep Getting Better!
Couldn't wait to buy the U.S. version of The Stabbing in the Stables. Even though the British version is rather pricey, it is worth it. Loved the book! The Fethering Mysteries just keep getting better. Brett is becoming quite comfortable with Carole and Jude. Carole is loosening up, Jude is learning to heal horses with her special abilities, and Ted Crisp...well, he's still scruffy but good hearted. If you liked the other books in the series, you'll certainly enjoy this one. Love Brett's quirky sense of humor.

Murder most delightful
This is the third Simon Brett Fethering mystery that I have read, though it is the sixth book in the ever expanding series. Coming to a novel in the middle of a series can sometimes cause the reader to wonder what they have missed and I promised myself that I would read them in order after reading Death under the Dryer: I haven't though!

Although there is a lot to these two new Miss Marple's Jude and Carole in these books, it does not spoil your enjoyment if anything it makes you keep reading as you discover the personalities of these characters as the book and the story develops. My heart warms to Jude and her rather bohemian lifestyle in stark contrast to Carole who seems so uptight that she could snap at any moment when she insists on doing everything by the book, legally and above board with no possible ramifications of their actions.

With a Brett Fethering mystery you are guaranteed a body within the first couple of chapters, in this case the body of Walter Fleet, joint owner of the Long Bamber Livery Stables. Jude is the first to discover the body but she hears someone disappearing from the back of the stables was this the murderer? Jude and Carole become involved as they try and discover who killed Fleet. Even when a local horse healer and drunken ex jockey Donal gets arrested, both the ladies are not convinced it was him. When he is released they use his expertise at healing horses to try and glean what information he knows but this information costs plenty of whisky and even a couple of fights along the way.

There are many more possible people in the frame for the murder, Lucinda Fleet, Walter's wife who showed no grief when he was found dead. Sonia Dalrymple who has so much tension and stress that she is hiding visibly unravels as we read further into the book. What is she hiding? Is it the mysterious `Horse Ripper' who has been targeting local horses? Then Alec Potton confesses but something does not add up, and his daughter Imogen a frequent visitor to the Long Bamber stables is trying to tell everyone something but no one listen not until she does something drastic which makes everyone stop and listen as to what she saw and heard.

I had theories about whodunit but they were wrong and I was surprised by the outcome, however reflecting back on this the clues were all there I just chose to not piece them together in the correct way. A good easy read and comical in parts and I liked the ending which tied all the characters up nicely for me something Brett has not done in the other two novels I have read. There is something delightful about these books which anyone who has a liking for 'nice' murders (of the Agatha Christie variety) then these are the books for you.