Double Act

Phyllida Moon #5

by Eileen Dewhurst

Returning from several months spent filming her lead role in a brand new TV detective series, Phyllida Moon as misgivings about how she will be received at the Peter Piper Detective Agency. But she has no need to worry - she's welcomed back with open arms. And Peter has just the job lined up for her . . .

Phyllida doesn't have much trouble thinking herself into her new role, that of Sonia Sheridan, amateur actress extraordinaire, though she has slightly more difficulty exposing the drug dealing thought exposing the drug dealing thought to be taking place within the Little Theatre Company. She's on the brink of making an amazing - and totally unexpected - discovery when suddenly something happens that sheds a whole new light on the case. One of the theatre company is murdered - and it looks like the killer could only be a fellow member . . .

320 pages, Hardcover

First published June 4, 2000

About the author

Eileen Dewhurst was born in Liverpool, read English at Oxford, and has earned her living in a variety of ways, including journalism. When she is not writing she enjoys solving cryptic crossword puzzles and drawing and painting cats.

Series:
. Neil Carter
. Helen Markham-Johnson
. Phyllida Moon

Series contributed to::
. Perfectly Criminal
. Northern Blood

Reviews

[Damaskcat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Phyllida Moon – actress and private investigator – is back in Seaminster after a few months filming a television series. Peter Piper – her boss at the detective agency – has a job which he thinks might suit her very well. She needs to find out whether a teenager is taking drugs or has otherwise gone to the bad and as he is a member of a theatre group which is currently holding auditions Phyllida seems the best person to keep an eye on him.

But there is more going on in the theatre group than at first meets the eye and Phyllida finds her latest creation of Mrs Sonia Sheridan – an American widow on a visit to England – attracts more attention than she might have wished. This is a well written and entertaining mystery with a very tense finish to the story. I didn’t work out who was the murderer until very close to the end.

This interesting series is a bit different from the normal run of private detective crime fiction and I find the uneasy relationship between the Peter Piper detective agency and the police very well done. I like Phyllida as a character and the way she develops her various personae. If you like your crime novels without too much violence and with well-drawn characters and plots then try the Phyllida Moon mysteries – they can be read in any order.