Theater Book: The Cinderella Killer

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The Cinderella Killer—A Charles Paris mystery

By Simon Brett (Severn House, 2014)

It’s just wonderful that Simon Brett is writing Charles Paris mysteries again, after forsaking the character for so many years. Of the 19 books about the ever-struggling, ever-inebriated actor-cum-amateur-sleuth, 11 were published between 1975 and 1985, a rate of one per year. Then they became biannual affairs, with Charles Paris mysteries published in 1987, ’89. ’91, ’93 and ’95. Then it was three years before Sicken and So Die came out in 1998, and 15—fifteen!—years until Charles Paris reappeared in print with the self-aware title A Decent Interval in 2013. Now here, just a year later, is another one.

One assumes this rebirth of one of mystery fiction’s all-time great thespians is due to the continued success of a BBC radio series based on the early Charles Paris books, starring Bill Nighy. Whatever the cause, Brett has been able to do nearly 20 of these mysteries and use a different theatrical genre for each of them. He’s done West End, community theater, audiobooks, reality shows, sitcoms, and still hasn’t repeated himself.

The Cinderella Killer is set in the world of British holiday pantomime shows. The title may be one of the least inspired in the Paris oeuvre, but the chapter headings more than make up for it, since they’re drawn from tired old music hall comedy gags (often in verse form) which relate to such familiar Charles Paris themes as drinking, self-deprecating, and listening to other people complain. Chapter 24’s prefatory joke is thus:

First Broker’s Man: I’ve got the yaws—it’s something chronic.

Second Broker’s Man: What’s yaws?

First Broker: Well, thank you. Gin and tonic.

Charles Paris mysteries erupt from Brett’s deep knowledge of stagecraft and the proclivities of professional actors. The dramatic ambiance is everything. Especially in the opening chapters, Brett wanders away from the plot freely, so he can let Charles Paris opine on the state of modern theater and painfully recall all the bad reviews he’s received in his own life on the stage.

On facing pages, early in The Cinderella Killer, there’s this:

Charles wasn’t all that keen on improvisation. His distaste for it dated back to a long three months he’d spent with one of those directors who say their scripts are “created in the mutual white heat of improvisation with their ensemble,” and then claim for themselves all the royalties for the published text and subsequent productions.

And this:

(Charles was constantly amazed by how much dancers smoked. For them fitness was clearly a relatively term.)

And this:

Because of Bix Rogers’ background, the chorus line for Cinderella was bigger than it would be for most pantomimes, where savage cost-cutting and cast reduction were primary concerns. (Charles remembered being told by a fellow actor of one particular cheapskate production of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves which contained the line: “You come with me. You thirty-nine wait out there.”)

As the mystery wends on, the amusing asides about life as a working actor fall by the wayside, and some of the most fascinating supporting characters (i.e. suspects) are given short shrift. That’s the way with all the Charles Paris books. On the plus side, Brett (who also writes two cosy mystery series, Fethering and Mrs. Pargeter, has done many radio and TV dramas, and saw his thriller Shock to the System turned into a Michael Caine movie) really does craft ingenious mystery plots. You really don’t know whodunit until the final pages. Once you do know, Brett’s performance instinct kicks in and he lets you know how the show Charles Paris is acting in turns out.