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Simon Brett worked as a producer in radio and television before taking up writing full-time. He was awarded an OBE in the 2016 New Year’s Honours for services to Literature and also was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 2014 he won the CWA’s prestigious Diamond Dagger for an outstanding body of work. simonbrett.com
Also by Simon Brett The Fethering Mysteries Bones Under the Beach Hut Guns in the Gallery The Corpse on the Court The Strangling on the Stage The Tomb in Turkey The Killing in the Café The Liar in the Library The Charles Paris Theatrical Series Dead Room Farce A Decent Interval The Cinderella Killer A Deadly Habit The Mrs Pargeter Mysteries Mrs Pargeter’s Point of Honour Mrs Pargeter’s Principle Mrs Pargeter’s Public Relations
The paperback first published in Great Britain, the USA and Canada in 2020 by Black Thorn, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
Distributed in the USA by Publishers Group West
and in Canada by Publishers Group Canada
First published in 2019 by Severn House Publishers Ltd,
Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY
This digital edition first published in 2020 by Canongate Books
blackthornbooks.com
Copyright © Simon Brett, 2019
The right of Simon Brett to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library ISBN 978 1 83885 383 9 eISBN 978 1 83885 384 6
Contents
To the hope that,
in my next incarnation,
I’ll be able to sing
EPITAPH ON AN AMATEUR SOPRANO
Her final note has now been sent,
Her final chord’s undone.
After life’s gloom, death should present
Her moment in the sun.
Alas, she has the worst of fates –
She must in Limbo stay
And wait outside the Pearly Gates
For ever and a day.
She’s not shut out because of sin.
Her virtue’s plain to see.
It’s just … she never knew when to come in,
And
