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Charles Paris #11
Dead Giveaway
A brief appearance on a TV game show, 'If the Cap Fits', means a day's pay, a few interesting contacts and a chance to visit the West End Television bar - not the least of incentives for a man of Charles Paris's thirst. But murder? Even for game shows where they'll try almost anything once, murder is going too far.
116 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1985
16 people are currently reading
178 people want to read
About the author
Simon Brett
330 books539 followersSimon Brett is a prolific British writer of whodunnits.
He is the son of a Chartered Surveyor and was educated at Dulwich College and Wadham College, Oxford, where he got a first class honours degree in English.
He then joined the BBC as a trainee and worked for BBC Radio and London Weekend Television, where his work included 'Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy' and 'Frank Muir Goes Into ...'.
After his spells with the media he began devoting most of his time to writing from the late 1970s and is well known for his various series of crime novels.
He is married with three children and lives in Burpham, near Arundel, West Sussex, England. He is the current president of the Detection Club.
He is the son of a Chartered Surveyor and was educated at Dulwich College and Wadham College, Oxford, where he got a first class honours degree in English.
He then joined the BBC as a trainee and worked for BBC Radio and London Weekend Television, where his work included 'Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy' and 'Frank Muir Goes Into ...'.
After his spells with the media he began devoting most of his time to writing from the late 1970s and is well known for his various series of crime novels.
He is married with three children and lives in Burpham, near Arundel, West Sussex, England. He is the current president of the Detection Club.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
October 12, 2025
Usually I find myself chuckling and indulging the aging, unfaithful, and most likely drunk Charles Paris, but Dead Giveaway left me a little sad. The mystery itself wasn’t bad, but I didn’t quite buy the culprit or the motive.
March 3, 2014
Charming send-up of the television industry. I listened to this as an audiobook and one always wonders whether the book is enhanced by an outstanding reader. In this case, especially, as this edition is read by the Simon Prebble so brilliantly.
Charles Parris is a failed actor whose agent gets him a job as one of the "professions" on a new game show entitled "If the Cap Fits." And so begin the puns and ridicule. (Cap, in addition to being a hat, can also be a diaphragm.) Virtually everyone associated with the industry is gently skewered, not the least of which are the lawyers who wrote "unreasonable" into the contract and then couldn't give a judgment on what unreasonable conditions might be, suggesting only a court could resolve that one.
Funny caricatures abound, and then the emcee drinks a glass of gin that has been poisoned and Charles is forced into playing detective once again as he searches for the killer. Light, fun, listen.
Charles Parris is a failed actor whose agent gets him a job as one of the "professions" on a new game show entitled "If the Cap Fits." And so begin the puns and ridicule. (Cap, in addition to being a hat, can also be a diaphragm.) Virtually everyone associated with the industry is gently skewered, not the least of which are the lawyers who wrote "unreasonable" into the contract and then couldn't give a judgment on what unreasonable conditions might be, suggesting only a court could resolve that one.
Funny caricatures abound, and then the emcee drinks a glass of gin that has been poisoned and Charles is forced into playing detective once again as he searches for the killer. Light, fun, listen.
June 4, 2020
This is one of the earlier outings for Simon Brett's down-at-heel actor Charles Paris, set in the early 1980s, and finds him ruing the realisation that his career seems to be continuing its general downward spiral. As this novel opens he is at least in work, but the role is far from glamorous.
West End Television, a local commercial station in London, has a long-established record of focusing on the less intellectually stretching end of the television market, and Is eager to move into the rapidly expanding field of game shows. To this end, it has secured the UK rights to a successful American TV game show Hats Off and, is preparing to make a series under the revised name of If the Cap Fits.
This scenario offers Simon Brett the opportunity for a searing satire of the world of game shows. The basic premise behind If the Cap Fits is that contestants drawn from the general public, and paired with celebrities, have to guess which of four representatives of different professions would wear which hat. Charles Paris is there … not as one of the celebrities but as an actor, because for the wacky world of 1980s TV game shows, actors can obviously be represented by Tudor bonnets. Of course, the actor in question has to be someone whom the public would be unlikely to recognise, which renders it a role made for Charles Paris.
Needless to say, before very long someone is dead, in questionable circumstances, and Charles finds himself delving more deeply for clues. In this case, the victim is Barrett Doran, the unwholesome host of the game show, and there is a large cohort of potential perpetrators.
When one of the Assistant Producers of the programme is arrested as prime suspect, Charles is called upon by her friends to help clear her name. As ever, Charles in turn suspects virtually all of the potential suspects before alighting on the actual killer.
Simon Brett is a master at combining a robust murder story and investigation with comedy. After all, he worked for several years as a television producer at the BBC and then in the commercial sector so he knows his material well, and he is able to focus his gaze on the world of game shows to great effect. As usual, the story is delivered in a humorous vein, though the plot remains sufficiently robust and watertight to stand up on its own merits.
West End Television, a local commercial station in London, has a long-established record of focusing on the less intellectually stretching end of the television market, and Is eager to move into the rapidly expanding field of game shows. To this end, it has secured the UK rights to a successful American TV game show Hats Off and, is preparing to make a series under the revised name of If the Cap Fits.
This scenario offers Simon Brett the opportunity for a searing satire of the world of game shows. The basic premise behind If the Cap Fits is that contestants drawn from the general public, and paired with celebrities, have to guess which of four representatives of different professions would wear which hat. Charles Paris is there … not as one of the celebrities but as an actor, because for the wacky world of 1980s TV game shows, actors can obviously be represented by Tudor bonnets. Of course, the actor in question has to be someone whom the public would be unlikely to recognise, which renders it a role made for Charles Paris.
Needless to say, before very long someone is dead, in questionable circumstances, and Charles finds himself delving more deeply for clues. In this case, the victim is Barrett Doran, the unwholesome host of the game show, and there is a large cohort of potential perpetrators.
When one of the Assistant Producers of the programme is arrested as prime suspect, Charles is called upon by her friends to help clear her name. As ever, Charles in turn suspects virtually all of the potential suspects before alighting on the actual killer.
Simon Brett is a master at combining a robust murder story and investigation with comedy. After all, he worked for several years as a television producer at the BBC and then in the commercial sector so he knows his material well, and he is able to focus his gaze on the world of game shows to great effect. As usual, the story is delivered in a humorous vein, though the plot remains sufficiently robust and watertight to stand up on its own merits.
January 9, 2025
As always, a Charles Paris mystery that also sheds light on/pokes fun at the inside workings of a media production, in this case, a game show. He's brought on to essentially pose on a new show called "If the Cap Fits" and there's a murder. It takes almost halfway until the death happens, while readers meet all the various characters. Brett takes his time here, and there are many scenes that don't add to the plot but where's he's enjoying satirizing the industry (like all the time we spend with the Executive Producer John Mantle and his American copyright holders). I got a little confused because not only are there MANY characters to meet and know (for example there's Charles and his three fellow "professions" whose names we don't ever know, the four contestants, the four "celebrity guests," the host, and the TV crew) we also learn how the game show works. Fortunately, Charles and his penchant for gin helps him here.
December 31, 2018
A lightweight but entertaining read. The book generally flowed well and the main character, Charles Paris, is well drawn in this murder mystery. There are a lot of characters in this story and it would have helped more if we had got to know them better when the reader first meets them. At times the book was a bit fast paced and it was a little difficult to recall who had said and done what earlier on. However, the story is highly readable overall especially for those not looking for anything too deep. Recommended.
January 2, 2019
This time Charles is investigating a death on a game show that he was taking part in (as part of a question not as a contestant or celebrity!) and is back in the world behind the scenes in TV. Clever and funny, I rattled through and went straight on to the next.
July 18, 2021
Written in the 1980s, it's great to see Simon's work coming back into print. Although it does seem a little dated now in the descriptions of clothes and hairstyles, I do enjoy a plain old murder mystery without the psychological twisting or gore.
December 13, 2017
Charles Paris is an interesting protagonist, and the plot was fun.
September 23, 2018
What a twisted murderer! I’m glad justice was served via Charles Paris.
Cool game show setting. Another good book in the series.
Cool game show setting. Another good book in the series.
July 22, 2013
I think that it has been with a feeling of some disappointment that I have read the last 4 books by this author - the last 2 from this series and also the latest 2 from the Feathering set and so it was nice to try an earlier work. Was it really written 25 years ago?
This was more as I remembered the author's work with the amusing perceptive descriptions of people and places and events.
I enjoyed the story although wasnt it a little short. An interesting and easy to follow plot with its share of red herrings and characters who were well described and easy to picture.
It reminded me how much I used to enjoy the various writings of Mr Brett.
This was more as I remembered the author's work with the amusing perceptive descriptions of people and places and events.
I enjoyed the story although wasnt it a little short. An interesting and easy to follow plot with its share of red herrings and characters who were well described and easy to picture.
It reminded me how much I used to enjoy the various writings of Mr Brett.
June 30, 2025
I love the Charles Paris books. They're a delightful bit of easy reading in the comic detection genre. Simon Brett is a distinguished radio and TV producer and his inside knowledge of the workings of the acting profession ground the novels and give some great opportunities for humour. Here he is very funny about the mundanities and inanities of a typical TV panel show. It's not the best in the series - the detection mainly seems to consist of Charles meeting people to ask if they Did It - but the setting is a joy.
September 27, 2012
Not too bad, but not as enjoyable as I remember other Charles Paris books being. A few too many names and jobs made for confusion (and not just on the television programme in question, where that’s the whole point). What’s more, in the half hour since I finished the book I’ve realised that Paris’s deduction regarding the solution is majorly flawed and only the subsequent confession of the killer is grounds for closing the case. Just two stars on this one, I’m afraid.
September 13, 2016
A delightful murder mystery.
Charles investigates the murder of a Gameshow host
The detail in the setting is superb, The Murder has enough mystery to engage the brain. The process is well thought out with distinct characters for the suspects.
The denoument is well paced and satisfying
Charles' love life is also of interest as well for those who have followed the series
4 stars -
Charles investigates the murder of a Gameshow host
The detail in the setting is superb, The Murder has enough mystery to engage the brain. The process is well thought out with distinct characters for the suspects.
The denoument is well paced and satisfying
Charles' love life is also of interest as well for those who have followed the series
4 stars -
October 18, 2016
Charles Paris is really reaching rock bottom in his acting career. He is playing a contestant in a TV panel game show where celebrities having to guess the contestants career. At the same time the contestants are asked to wear various appropriate hats, which is to help the celebrities guess their jobs. A murder occurs which starts Charles on his investigating journey once again.
June 1, 2014
In a quiz show similar to Wheel of Fortune, players must sort out the hats. But when a murder occurs Charles looks to the crime procedural programme in the next studio. The final answer may be a bit difficult to guess, as is the intended victim.
March 23, 2012
3.75 Quick and clever.
August 31, 2013
Like many of his books... short, easy to read, with characters we don't wholly like.
July 22, 2014
Bit of a potboiler. This novel is number 11 in Brett's "Charles Paris" series, and not nearly as entertaining as the earlier ones.
June 24, 2014
Quick, fairly predictable cozy with interesting lead character. Enjoyable but nothing new.
August 14, 2014
a good dose of light entertainment
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February 20, 2017light and fun
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews