Coffin, Scarcely Used

A Flaxborough Mystery, Book 1

By: Colin Watson

Narrated by: Simon Shepherd

In the respectable seaside town of Flaxborough, the equally respectable councillor Harold Carobleat is laid to rest. Cause of death: pneumonia.

But he is scarcely cold in his coffin before Detective Inspector Purbright, affable and annoyingly polite, must turn out again to examine the death of Carobleat's neighbour, Marcus Gwill, former prop. of the local rag, the Citizen.

This time it looks like foul play, unless a surfeit of marshmallows had led the late and rather unlamented Mr Gwill to commit suicide by electrocution. ('Power without responsibility', murmurs Purbright.) How were the dead men connected, both to each other and to a small but select band of other town worthies? Purbright becomes intrigued by a stream of advertisements Gwill was putting in the Citizen, for some very oddly named antique items....

Witty and a little wicked, Colin Watson's tales offer a mordantly entertaining cast of characters and laugh-out-loud wordplay.

©2018 Colin Watson (P)2019 Audible, Ltd

I had a good nap while listening to this book.

Fairly difficult to follow if you’re from my side of the Atlantic. Too much stream of consciousness, combined with the dry Brit wit and plummy verbosity.

Well written and amusing

Great story with lots of interesting characters and twists. Don’t understand the negative reviews. Not soapy or predictable. Well narrated.

Excellent, more please!

Please acquire the rest of the Flaxborough mysteries series so that I can buy them. I love the author's sense of fun as he creates intriguing plots and characters. However, the wry observations on human behavior and hilarious internal thoughts and the dialog are just wonderful. These mysteries are so entertaining and Simon Shepherd is the perfect narrator for them, More please!

Couldn't get into it

Should've been a contender, but I had trouble following the story. By the end, I still had no real idea of the characters, nor exactly what had happened. It wasn't a bad, or dull, book; just never got an traction. Will try another to see whether that works better as the writing itself, and narration, were fine.

Hard to follow

I was really hoping to enjoy this story as the plot sounded very interesting but I had such a difficult time following the story. There were many times that I had to rewind and listen again for some of the details. The whole experience was not very enjoyable. There also was not enough of a distinction in the narrator’s voice when switching amongst the various characters. I was often puzzled which character had made statements.