Butcher's Wood - (Brighton Mystery) by Peter Guttridge (Hardcover)

About the Book

A theatre actress is killed by a falling lead weight during a play. As DI Sarah Gilchrist and DS Bellamy Heap make their enquiries they find the cast disgruntled with the director, Cat Pinter, regarding her production and that she has recently disappeared. Where has Cat disappeared to? Was the actress deliberately target and, if so, by whom?

Book Synopsis

A bloody death of an actress during a theatre show has DI Gilchrist and DS Heap investigate . . . but was it a bizarre accident or a deliberate attack?

During a theatre performance Detective Inspector Sarah Gilchrist is reluctantly attending, blood begins soaking through a curtain startling one actor into falling to his death from the stage. The source of the blood: Elvira Wright, the lead actress, has been bludgeoned by a lead weight used for opening the curtain.

Meanwhile former Hollywood actress Nimue Grace is attracting attention from a notorious gangster. When she stumbles across something horrific in the aptly named Butcher's Wood, she interprets it as a vicious message left for her.

As Gilchrist and Detective Sergeant Bellamy Heap investigate, they find themselves running in circles. All the actors were disgruntled with the director of the play, Cat Pinter, and the way it was produced, but why would any of them target Elvira? And what is the meaning of the horrible discovery in Butcher's Wood?

Review Quotes

Though the series repays reading from the beginning for its complex

relationships, this new entry succeeds as a stand-alone - Kirkus Reviews

Catherine Aird fans who've not yet discovered this series will be delighted-- "Publishers Weekly on The Lady of the Lake"

A masterly procedural with erudite characters and a nasty sting in the tail-- "Kirkus Reviews on The Lady of the Lake"

Amusing repartee, well-drawn characters, and intriguing plot twists distinguish this police procedural-- "Publishers Weekly on Swimming with the Dead"

Cleverly nuanced sleuths solve a series of knotty crimes with daring and panache-- "Kirkus Reviews on Swimming with the Dead"

Guttridge effectively combines a challenging mystery with fascinating backstory-- "Booklist on Swimming with the Dead"

This is a ripping good British mystery, with murder and betrayal among the treats-- "Booklist on The Lady of the Lake"

About the Author

Award-winning comic crime author Peter Guttridge turned from the Daft Side to the Dark Side for his Brighton mystery series, which started with City of Dreadful Night and continued most recently with The Lady of the Lake. He was also the Observer's crime fiction critic for twelve years, and so has read far more crime fiction than is good for him.

www.peterguttridge.com