
A Comedian Dies
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Narrated by:
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Frederick Davidson
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By:
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Simon Brett
It looks like an accident, but Charles is not so sure and starts to find out more about the people in the other acts on the bill: Janine, the pretty dancer who disappears; Miffy Turtle, Peaky's manager, a little too sharply dressed and too sharp altogether; Chox Morton, seedy and unduly nervous, manager of another act; Lennie Barber, one-time star comedian trying to make a comeback. The more Charles investigates, the more suspects turn up.
©1979 Simon Brett (P)1993 Blackstone AudiobooksListeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
"Typical Brett: Well-realized characters and urbane dialogue...a pronounced touch of irony.' (The New York Times Book Review)
This is a great mystery novel in the Charles Parris series. It’s very funny, insightful, sarcastic, entertaining view of actors, writers, and the television industry. And, of course, there’s a murder mystery for Charles to solve. The narration is fantastic.
Excellent Charles Paris
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And yet, in spite of that retrospective snag, I enjoyed the dickens out of this book. Brett casts a wryly humorous, thoroughly jaundiced eye on so much of what constituted Modernity in 1979; all the superficiality of TV that has since metastasized into the superficiality of Facebook. Getting on in years myself, I couldn’t help liking Lenny Barber, the gifted, once-famous comic who sees himself overhauled by younger, less-gifted newcomers whose main aim is cash, not craft. My empathy went so deep that the moral ambiguity of the ending struck me as a touching mercy--probably because the investigation wasn't official.
The writing is witty, urbane, with an internal bounce that keeps the listener interested in whatever happens next—even lunch at a “concept” restaurant. And Frederick Davidson knows exactly how to keep all that urbane wit bouncing along. He remains my beau ideal of a reader, for almost every type of audiobook.
Sheer Enjoyment, with One Reservation.
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Couldn't get past the narration
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"A Comedian Dies" -- the show-biz double meaning is typical of this series -- centers on the comeback attempt of a brilliant vaudeville comic, Lenny Barber, whose best-known work was with a straight man -- a "feed" -- named Pole. Charles Paris is tapped to replace the long-deceased Pole in "The New Barber and Pole Show," which gets an unexpected chance to make the TV schedule when a rising young comedian who was to headline a new sitcom dies mid-act, electrocuted by his own microphone.
Charles is the first person to realize that the young man's death was actually murder, but remains oblivous to the increasingly obvious culprit. The ending, typical of Simon Brett novels, is sad, satisfying, and morally ambiguous all at the same time.
This entry from 1979 -- early-middle of the series -- is neither the worst nor of the best of these books. I suggest starting with one of the really great ones, either "Murder Unprompted," "An Amateur Corpse," or -- toward the end but perhaps the best of them-- "Sicken and So Die," all available from Audible.
Stage-Struck Mystery
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Terrible narrator!
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