Charles Paris, an elderly actor, gets the role of a
\"Golf-Club barman\", which is a regular character in
the new sitcom \"The Strutters\". One evening, Charles
is visited by a friend, who is a fan of Aurelia
Howarth, the main actress, and who wants to be
introduced to her. Just as they are talking and all
the actors, producers and staff-members have arrived
at the bar suddenly Sadie Wainwright\'s corpse is found
on the ground of the parking.
As the next six episodes are produced, Charles is
pretty bored because of his very small appearences
containing 14 lines per episode. So he decides to
spend his time finding out more about Sadie\'s
background and motives people could have had to kill
her. He comes to know, that everyone she knew could
have had motives to kill her, so he doesn\'t get very
far.
That day, Charles flirts with a very attractive young
lady called Janie, who can give him a lot of
information. After a few days, he contently accepts
the common verdict of death by accident. But still he
asks some members of the crew to find out more about
the dead woman\'s schedule on that day. She broke up a
relationship with a man, and she went straight to
another man, Bernard Walton.
As the days are passing, the filming starts at the
villa of one of the main actors. They all go there by
bus, except the young television director, who comes a
bit late, in his brand new Porsche and boasts a lot of
it. Then, half an hour later, the two main stars
arrive, being welcomed especially and having big
privileges everywhere.
Then after the filming-day is over, the director and
one of the main stars bet who\'s going to be first in
driving into the city. Just as the director starts
racing, he crashes into a tree and dies.
Because of that incident, Charles thinks about the
past, and tries to find out who could be the murderer.
He concludes, that it could be someone who wanted to
sabotage the whole show, and not particularly the main
actress, just as well as people with personal reasons.
And the only person he can think of, is Bernard. He
knows, that his own older series is not going to be
continued and he simply might have wanted to take
revenge. The new director is a bit strict, but
efficitent and good. He is a routineer, who does
everything \"his way\", but still good. He sees the
shots from the former director, who was killed, and he
sais, they are all crap and that they have to film it
all over again. After that day, Charles drives home
with Bernard and on the way, they stop by for Bernard
to make a phone call. Charles tries to bring up the
subject of the death of the two people several times,
but he doesn\'t succeed. Then they go out for dinner.
Because \"The Strutters\" is produced, the old
show(where Charles played the main role), \"What\'ll the
neighbours say?\", was cancelled and no plans of new
episodes were set up. Now the only way to get the old
show running again, was preventing \"The Strutters\"
>from success and stopping it from being produced. As
he is a bit mellowed, Bernard also confesses
indirectly that he is glad that the two murders
happend. Content, Charles goes to bed but as he wakes
up the next morning, his contentment is gone. He hears
that Rod Tisdale, the script-writer was killed the
last night. After having delivered the scripts for the
upcoming episodes, a car rolled him over. That happend
just at the time Charles was dining with Bernard.
Irritated, Charles has to set up a new theory about
the crimes because obviously Bernard cannot be the
murderer.
The next weeks are a bit boring until one part of an
episode requires filming in the ghetto but the
squatters there make problems. A young man, their
leader, starts stating that they don\'t have the right
to film there and as they start shooting rotten food
and trash, chaos arises. But then suddenly everyone
realizes that someone is lying dead in the middle of
the field. The police come, and investigate just as
usual and leave again, not minding Charles, who
remembers that this is the fourth incident. Later he
escorts one of the actresses home and sleeps with her.
The day after the beloved dog of the main actress dies
which hurts her immensly. As Charles sees how sad she
is he is determined to solve the accumulated
mysteries. For her.
Now he goes to the leader of the squatters, who made
problems, and that\'s how he is told that a green
Bentley was seen at the place where the murder
happened. Charles remembers that the only person who
ownes such a car is Barton Rivers, Aurelia\'s husband,
who was present at all death-scenes... Charles finds a
lot of good motives and the more he thinks about it,
the surer he gets. Barton might have wanted to take
revenge from all the members of the crew, assaulting
them randomly.
He doesn\'t suspect Aurelia, his wife, to be an
accomplice, but he is sure that she must have
suspected something. But maybe her husband threatens
her and noone knows. During the next production days
Charles watches Barton\'s every step so that no more
\"accidents\" can happen.
As a few days pass he realizes that he can\'t watch
Barton all the time and so he calls one of his good
friends who is also interested in solving
murder-cases, and asks him for help. George Birkitt
complains about the new script writers and criticizes
the quality of the new episodes. A few changes are
done and everybody is satisfied.That week, everything
goes on pretty slowly. But as time passes, they get a
bit faster.
Romney Kirkstall has a biography of Aurelia Howard in
which there is a still from an aborted film called
\"Death takes a short cut\". Then later Romney says he
has seen a copy of this book by R.Q. Wilberforce with
that title in a bookshop Barton Rivers once
recommended to him. So Charles had gone to the
bookshop and been put in touch with the book-sales
man.
Charles realizes that the next murder in the book was
commited with a samurai sword and that the next day\'s
script contained a part with a samurai sword.
As he wants to order more of R.Q.Wilberforce\'s books
to his surprise he is told that Wilberforce\'s real
name is Barton Rivers. BP 154 Now he is even more
forced to read his other books.
---
Quote p. 158 4th paragraph from the bottom
---
So on the next day, Charles is prepared to keep an eye
on Barton all the time, not touching the sword. He
needs evidence and he is sure to be able to manage
getting it that day. As the final scene comes up he is
very nervous knowing that if he makes a mistake
someone else can die.
Then, as the part with the sword comes up Barton
stands up, Charles runs behind him and then suddenly
instead of touching the sword he pushes Charles over
the railing and made him fall off. As Charles got up,
all his bones hurt, and he felt lots of pain. His
theory with the books had been right but today it was
another part of the book\'s turn.
As he talks to Aurelia about it she confirms his
suspicious and tells him that she always had waited
for him to stop the killing - but in vain. War had
left a lot of scars deep inside of Barton and a
production of the book he had written had been
cancelled. His dream had been destroyed and again he
was the unimportant man next to his famous wife. And
then their son was killed in war.
Now Aurelia admits that she and her husband committed
all the murders. In the end Aurelia had tells Barton
to try to kill Charles because was on the right path
in solving the murder mystery.
Suddenly Charles realizes why Aurelia is talking so
much - she is just waiting for her husband to return.
As he enters he isn\'t surprized to see Charles at all.
His claws shoot out and Charles feels himself being
lifted horribly fast out of his seat. Aurelia tells
her husband to kill Charles but Barton won\'t do that
because he needs a samurai sword to slide into the
last character of his books. Barton leaves the room
with Aurelia just before a production assistant
appears. He says, that a samurai sword has been stolen
and that he is looking for it. Charles realizes that
his ordeal was not yet over. He takes a taxi and goes
to the collector(library), who has the R.Q.Wilberforce
collection and reads the rest of his books, hoping to
solve the mystery this way. The last book from Barton
deals with the tragic accident of the two main
characters falling off a cliff on purpose.
The next day, the news tell about the tragic death of
Aurelia and Barton, having fallen off a cliff are
announced on the radio. The whole public looks back on
Aurelia Howard as one of the finest young ladies in
movie business and regret her passing away. The news
don\'t say anything particular about Barton or his
life. The production of \"The Strutters\" is aborted.
Charles calls his family after a long time.
CHARACTERS
Charles Paris
His is not a career of constant decision, weighing the
advantages and disadvantages of one job against
another; it is a career of grabbing whatever he was
offered quickly, before anyone changes their minds.
He is constantly courageous, trying to find the
murderer in any way. And of course he is extremely
clever and smart - finding out this crazy theory
really isn\'t as easy as it seems.
Aurelia Howard
Aurelia is very strong on the surface, but deep
inside, she is weak. She is afraid to stop her husband
killing people and so she comes along with him and
starts to kill too, when neeeded. She is after all
desperately in love with her husband, though he is
really mentally sick.
Barton Howard
He is a man, disappointed by the world and everything
in it. Pretending to be a character from his books is
appearently his only chance to
My Opinion
\"Situation Tragedy\" is one of those books, in which
you can\'t understand the whole story until you have
read the last ten pages. But the more impatient you
get, the more it is worth reading it. The book is full
of jokes and funny parts. The ends of the chapters
always are a bit of a preview of the upcoming one - a
writing method, I personally think of as highly
professional. The vocabulary used here is at a very
level and understanding whole paragraphs sometimes can
only be possible with a translation book.
The Author\'s Message and some comments
Simon Brett points out that scrubs deep inside of
people can be hidden for years. Healing wounds takes
patience and good will. Instead of joining her husband
killing people, Aurelia could have tried to help him
by either sending him to a psychatrist or simply by
showing more love and respect to her husband. Very
often it is hard for men to accept that their wife is
more successful or more popular than they are. All
that fame around Aurelia and also the loss of his son
create a very hard environment for Barton.
I guess, the book also wants to convey the Atmosphere
on a set, and the problems which occur in
film-business. All the different characters, the
longing for fame, the jelousy , and the interpersonal
relationships are described very well.
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