She Treads Softly: Mrs Pargeter's Past

Thursday, September 25, 2025

Mrs Pargeter's Past

Mrs Pargeter's Past by Simon Brett
10/7/25; 192 pages
Severn House
Mrs. Pargeter #10

Mrs Pargeter's Past by Simon Brett is a highly recommended, entertaining, and very British cozy mystery. This is the tenth book in the Mrs Pargeter series but it can be read as a standalone novel.

Mrs Pargeter and her late husband were very happily married. Mr Pargeter, was not a man to bring his work home with him so she has no idea what he did for a living, but when he passed away he left her very, very wealthy. His associates are all respectable members of society now, and if they were ever criminals, they are now reformed. When Short Head Shimmings, her late husband’s former accountant, needs help, Mrs Pargeter naturally offers to do so, but his problems can't be solved with a check. He has angered the Batinga Brothers and they are out for blood. Mrs Pargeter turns to her husband's former associates for assistance to resolve the situation.

This is a well-written, clever, enjoyable caper where the seemingly clueless but secretly clever Mrs Pargeter plans to dismantle the Batinga Brother's criminal empire while also protecting Short Head Shimmings. She turns to her husbands black book of contacts and finds assistance from a group of people who all have nicknames, like Concrete Jacket for example. Hedgeclipper Clinton, Truffler Mason, and Jukebox Jarvis are there to help along with others and Gary is always available to chauffeur Mrs. Pargeter as she sets the plan into motion.

Mrs Pargeter's Past is a good choice for anyone who is interested in reading a lighthearted cozy mystery. Thanks to Severn House for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.