Worthless Remains

November 5, 2012
British author Helton's amusing fourth Chris Honeysett mystery (after 2008's Rainstone Fall) takes the bumbling PI and artist from cold, wet Bath to sunny Corfu, at the behest of a supermarket mogul worried about a valued employee, Kyla Biggs, who disappeared there while on holiday. Afraid to fly, Honeysett sets out in a dilapidated motor home with a stowaway cat, a postcard sent by Kyla from Corfu's Niko's Taverna, and Greek language tapes. Once on the island, Honeysett manages to locate fellow artist and friend Morva Lennox, who's living in a remote, abandoned village. Honeysett's aimless search for Kyla nets him a tail from someone in a blue Toyota, warnings from numerous sources, and increasingly weird and dangerous "accidents" at Morva's place. When lover Annis Jordan arrives and Honeysett finds Niko's Taverna, things heat up and the puzzling pieces fall into place in a dizzy, ditsy fashion that matches Honeysett's investigative techniques.

July 29, 2013
Helton’s diverting fifth Chris Honeysett mystery (after 2012’s An Inch of Time, 2012) finds Honeysett, a painter and PI, ensconced at Mill House, a rural retreat outside the city of Bath, with two overweight sheep and his girlfriend, Annis Jordan. For Honeysett, Jordan only counts as “half a girl,” since she’s also dating his partner in Aqua Investigations, ex-safecracker Tim Bigwood, not that anyone involved minds. Simon Paris, Honeysett’s gallerist in Bath and London, does mind that his client has switched his painting style from abstract to realistic. Honeysett is worried about all the bills the postman keeps delivering—which is why he ends up accepting a job looking after haughty, self-involved Guy Middleton, the presenter of an archeology TV program, who has been receiving a spate of chilling death threats. Some readers may feel Helton strains too hard at times for humorous effect, but Anglophiles should be satisfied with his close attention to the subtleties of British culture—and cookery in particular.

December 1, 2012
Tiny cups of coffee strong enough to pave potholes and glasses of cheap, terrible Greek red wine introduce a desultory private eye to life on Corfu. It's a cold, damp, penniless April in Bath when uninspired artist Chris Honeysett lands a windfall. As sole proprietor of Aqua Investigations, which he runs with his live-in gal pal, Annis, and her alternate boyfriend, Tim, Chris is asked by a major supermarket chain to locate missing employee Kyla Biggs. Would he mind leaving the awful weather to look for her in Corfu, where she was last spotted? A disreputable motor coach carries him off with his cat, Derringer, as stowaway. Many miles and several countries later, he winds up on a ferry to Corfu, where he picks up a tail while he's on the way to reacquaint himself with his artist friend Morva, perhaps cadge lodgings from her and, oh yes, find Kyla. Morva has a few problems herself: a snake in the kitchen, a tortoise with a candle strapped to its shell setting fire everywhere, a car cantilevered down the hillside headed straight for her. There's no sight of Kyla, though. Instead, Chris finds a bird-watcher and an armed guard wearing a vampire-printed T-shirt at the entrance to the Thalassa Organic Olive Oil Co-operative. His footsteps are dogged by a woman wearing gloves in the Mediterranean heat, someone else following her in turn. Annis and Tim arrive for a holiday, bringing more trouble and Ouzo hangovers. But eventually, all is straightened out, though you may never invest in expensive olive oil again. Who wouldn't want to spend a fortnight in Corfu with the droll Honeysett and his chums? Helton, who divides his writing time between two series, the noir (Four Below, 2012, etc.) and the wry (Rainstone Fall, 2008, etc.), is a great traveling companion.

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January 1, 2013

Artist and PI Chris Honeysett welcomes the chance to work in Corfu but finds the idyllic setting isn't quite paradise. This is the fourth case (after Rainstone Fall) for the idiosyncratic sleuth.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2012
Artist and private eye Chris Honeysett of Aqua Investigations jumps at the chance to leave cold, damp England for sunny Corfu to locate Kyla Biggs. Kyla disappeared in Corfu while on the job, and her employer, a national supermarket chain, is concerned. Once on the island, Honeysett looks up his friend Morva, who is running a school for artists in an abandoned village. Staying with Morva, he begins his search for Kyla, but residents in the surrounding villages are less than helpful and seem to be hiding something. In addition, it looks like someone is trying to sabotage Morva's school, to the point of trying to kill her. Or are the attacks directed at Honeysett? Honeysett's chatty, first-person narration; his self-deprecating humor; the Corfu frame; and details of art add to this cozy mystery, which will appeal to fans of Roderic Jeffries' Inspector Alvarez series, set on the island of Majorca.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)