Mrs Pargeter is the protagonist of Simon Brett’s cozy mystery series. A wealthy, cheerful widow, she inherited more than money from her late husband — she inherited his entire network of criminal contacts. When trouble finds her, she draws on locksmiths, forgers, and ex-cons who owed her husband favors, solving problems that would stump the police.
The comedy of the series comes from Mrs Pargeter herself: she is genuinely kind, utterly unflappable, and completely unwilling to admit that her husband was anything but a legitimate businessman. The ten novels, published between 1986 and 2018, follow her from one unlikely situation to the next, each solved through a combination of good manners and bad company. The Mrs Pargeter series collects all the books in reading order.
Reading Order#
See the complete Mrs Pargeter reading order for all books in the series.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Mrs Pargeter?
Mrs Pargeter is the protagonist of Simon Brett’s ten-book cozy mystery series. She is a wealthy widow whose late husband, though outwardly respectable, maintained a vast network of criminal associates. Mrs Pargeter uses these contacts — locksmiths, forgers, surveillance experts — to investigate crimes and help people in trouble, all while maintaining her own cheerful innocence about how her husband actually earned his fortune.
How many books feature Mrs Pargeter?
Mrs Pargeter appears in ten novels by Simon Brett, published between 1986 and 2018, from A Nice Class of Corpse through Mrs Pargeter’s Public Relations.
What makes the Mrs Pargeter mysteries distinctive?
The series runs on a single comic premise: a respectable, well-mannered widow who solves crimes by calling in favors from her dead husband’s criminal network. She never acknowledges that her husband was anything other than a successful businessman, and the contrast between her genteel manner and the shady characters she relies on gives every book its humor.