A Charles Paris Mystery is a series of detective novels by Simon Brett, about actor Charles Paris, who solves murders he encounters in his theatrical and film jobs.

The novels have been adapted by Jeremy Front into a comedy-drama series for BBC Radio, starring Bill Nighy.

Brett was inspired to write the Charles Paris series after working on the BBC radio adaptations of Lord Peter Wimsey:^[1] "I realised that plot is really important but character and dialogue were actually just as important."^[2]

Character

Charles Paris is an unhappily separated (but not divorced, more than 30 years on), moderately successful character actor^{[Note 1]} with a slight drinking problem who gets entangled in various crimes, and finds himself unwillingly in the role of amateur detective.

Bill Nighy describes Paris as "an actor sleuth, who drinks too much and smokes too much and doesn't work very much. But every time he does go to work, somebody gets murdered."^[3]

Reception

The radio adaptations have been described by The Guardian as "languid, restful fun",^[4] and by The Times as "always a treat... Paris is an ingenious confection... The joy for listeners comes from how Nighy makes almost tangible every observation in Front’s pithy script."^[5]

A review of So Much Blood (2023) in The Daily Telegraph described the series as cozy crime, and wrote "The first reason to tune in is that Charles Paris is Bill Nighy... It's the role he was born to play." The reviewer also praised Suzanne Burden's comic timing.^[6]

Novels

1. Cast, In Order of Disappearance (1975)
2. So Much Blood (1976)
3. Star Trap (1977)
4. An Amateur Corpse (1978)
5. A Comedian Dies (1979)
6. The Dead Side of the Mic (1980)
7. Situation Tragedy (1981)
8. Murder Unprompted (1982)
9. Murder in the Title (1983)
10. Not Dead, Only Resting (1984)
11. Dead Giveaway (1985)
12. What Bloody Man Is That? (1987)
13. A Series of Murders (1989)
14. Corporate Bodies (1991)
15. A Reconstructed Corpse (1993)
16. Sicken and So Die (1995)
17. Dead Room Farce (1998)
18. A Decent Interval (2013)
19. The Cinderella Killer (2014)
20. A Deadly Habit (2018)

Adaptations

Cast, In Order of Disappearance (June 1984) and So Much Blood (August 1985) were both adapted by Simon Brett as serials for BBC Radio 2 with Francis Matthews in the lead role.

Bill Nighy has played Paris in a series of BBC Radio productions. The first, an adaptation of So Much Blood for The Saturday Play in 1999, was dramatised by Bert Coules. It was recorded on location at its Edinburgh Fringe setting. A Series of Murders followed as another Saturday Play in 2004, adapted by Jeremy Front. Since then, they have been adapted by Jeremy Front into number of four-episode half-hour serials. As of 2023 there have been 15 series. These serials have all been updated from the novels, and adapted to deal with continuity problems caused by the adaptations being made out of order in relation to the books, with later adaptations featuring more far-reaching changes to the central mysteries.

Recurring cast members include Jon Glover as Charles's agent Maurice, and Suzanne Burden as his estranged wife Frances.

Notes

References