Mrs Pargeter's Point of Honour by
Simon Brett
pbk out February 00
(Pan)
at £5.99
Mrs Pargeter is asked by an elderly widow, Veronica Chastaigne, Mrs Bennie Logan, to return a large number of stolen paintings to their rightful owners. It is a task that would have been undertaken by Mrs Pargeter's late husband, so she takes it upon herself to do all that is necessary as a point of honour. She is ably assisted in this by her husband's associates who hold him in such esteem that they willingly help in any way they can. That help is considerable because these men possess remarkable skills: Truffler Mason has unrivalled knowledge of criminal behaviour and is now going straight as a private investigator; the splendid HRH, Hamish Ramon Henriques, is enlisted to smuggle some of the paintings out of the country; Vanishing Vernon is able to make other people disappear; and Jukebox Jarvis is a computer wizard who could hack into the police computer whenever he wanted. These men, and there are others, help Mrs Pargeter to fulfil her point of honour.
Mrs Pargeter and her team are opposed by the representatives of law and order, DI Wilkinson and DS Hughes. Wilkinson is an embittered man who came close to arresting the master criminal, Mr Pargeter, in his lifetime, but failed at the last. He looks on his young assistant, DS Hughes, with distaste because he senses that Hughes is a bright young man who may go far in the police service and attempts to stifle his enthusiasm. Hughes for his part sees Wilkinson as a dinosaur and compiles a dossier on Mr Pargeter and his associates, which falls into the hands of Mrs Pargeter. Truffler Mason is very impressed when she passes it to him and admits that Hughes is "far too bright a boy to be working in the Police Force". The dossier is doctored by Jukebox Jarvis and returned to Wilkinson who therefore fails again. But he comes close enough to success to give Mrs Pargeter some qualms, though she should really not be too troubled. She can, after all, call on the formidable talents of her late husband's defence lawyer, Arnold Justiman, who, it was said, "could have organised a driving licence for Blind Pew, and got the charges against Jack the Ripper reduced to fines for overdue library books". His motto is: "Most things can be arranged if you know the right people".
This is the sixth Mrs Pargeter book and it is a delight. A real pleasure to read.
Mrs Pargeter's Point of Honour by
Simon Brett