Death Under the Dryer - Simon Brett

Now I love these books by Simon Brett known cllectively as the Fethering Mysteries. Two friends and neighbours - Jude and Carole (as alike as chalk and cheese) team up to 'solve'

the surprisingly large number of murders that they accidentally stumble across. Fethering is clearly as dangerous a place to live in as Midsummer! If you're looking for blood, gore, police investigations or Agatha Christie like amateur sleuths you won't find it here. What you get is a well written old fashioned whodunit. This time Carole goes to have her hair done locally (something of a first for this very private person, but her usual hair stylist is not an option). At the end of her appointment the body of the hairdresser's junior is found strangled with the flex of a hair dryer.

360 pages later we come to the resolution of the mystery - and like all excellent whodunnits the truth is found in the last chapter. There are plenty of red herrings, dead ends and suspense. We discover more about the two leading characters, but there is very minimal violence, no pornography, no swearing or bad language. What a relief! They are just so addictive - I rattle through them in three or four days. I rate this 9/10