Charles Paris is in clover He has been contracted for three whole months to play brainless bobby Sergeant Clump, foil to the charismatic amateur sleuth, Stanislas Braid, in a TV series of that name Recourseабякь to the Bell’s is still needed, however, to get him through a day’s filming—one made all the more arduous by the pompous posturings of the show’s star, and the constant outraged interruptions of the ancient author whose detective novels are being adapted Indeed, thereавтбо is plenty of friction about, but when a particularly unpromising actress is killed, crushed to death, there seems no reason to doubt it was an accident…except in Charles’s mind Leaving behind a trail of broken resolutions and empty bottles, Charles indulges in some sleuthing of his own He may lack the panache of the suave Stanislas Braid, but unlike the great detective the danger Paris encounters is only too real.