It is the second in the Decluttering Mysteries series, whose central character is Ellen who is based in Chichester and works helping people declutter and overcome hoarding behaviour. In the course of this work she becomes involved in solving a suspicious death of a potential client. It’s an ingenious device and sounds like a typical Brett set-up, which in a way it is. However, he offers much more than usual in the way of psychological insight and compassionate understanding into the origins of hoarding behaviour and approaches to helping. In addition, Ellen’s personal circumstances include a depressive husband who eventually killed himself and a son who has inherited some of his father’s depression. This, too, is handled with both insight and understanding so that I found it a genuinely interesting, thoughtful facet of the book, rather than just the sort of standard, unconvincing bit of Complicated Personal Life which crops up too often in crime novels.
I see that some reviewers found this too miserable, but I certainly didn’t. For me it elevated a frothy bit of light fiction to a much more rewarding read without ever getting bogged down in gloom. Brett’s prose is excellent in that it carries you along completely naturally in Ellen’s narrative voice, he gives us some terrific, neatly painted portraits of minor characters and, on a personal note, I am delighted to find a character who says, “I always prefer the words ‘die’ and ‘death’ to any of the popular euphemisms. ‘Passed’ and ‘passed away’ are just attempts to sanitize the reality.” Amen to that.
I’m surprised to find myself giving a Simon Brett book five stars; they’re normally a solid four for me, but this deserves more. I can warmly recommend it, and I’ll be catching up on the first in the series very soon.
(My thanks to Canongate Books for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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