Lowe and Le Breton mysteries - Death at the Dress Rehearsal

In 1970, while on a location shoot in Shropshire for the downmarket BBC sitcom Floggit and Leggit, ageing actor Edward Lowe—a ‘short, stocky northerner with a receding hairline and bad eyesight’, who plays the pompous and officious lead, a role based on himself—stumbles across the body of a young woman, apparently the victim of a tragic drowning accident.

But there's something about her death that rings the faintest of bells in his head and, convinced the woman has been murdered, he enlists the help of his laid-back, upper-class co-star John Le Breton, a man for whom raising a wry eyebrow is a bit too much of an effort, to investigate further.

Crossing the country and back again during gaps in filming, the two elderly thespians make use of their wildly contrasting personalities and skillsets to uncover both a series of murders in the modern day and links to another unfortunate death during World War II. But, as the body count mounts and a pattern to the killings begins to emerge, can Edward and John put their differences aside to save the innocent victims of a serial killer and still be ready for when the cameras start rolling?

Death at the Dress Rehearsal is the first in The Lowe and Le Breton Mysteries series.