THE CLUTTER CORPSE

Brett, long a prolific and sharp-eyed observer of the British middle class’s crimes and misdemeanors, launches a new series whose heroine wants to declutter your life.

Despite some misgivings about the aeronautical implications of the name, Ellen Curtis is content that SpaceWoman aptly communicates her vocation: to give her clients more room to grow in all sorts of ways by helping them clean out their domiciles. Her matter-of-fact approach to both her clients and the work she does, often aided by a hauler she’s dubbed Dodge, usually bulldozes obstacles that intimidate the hoarders who’ve erected them. This time, however, she’s stuck with three problem cases at once. Historian Tobias Lechlade’s wife, Dorothy, is so intimidated by him that she can’t commit to engaging SpaceWoman, and once she does, Tobias is more interested in hitting on Ellen than in letting her clean out his attic. Jeanette Tallis, who’s filled an entire outbuilding on her homestead with outfits she’s never worn and mostly never even unpacked, doesn’t want the services her wealthy husband, Bruce, is willing to pay Ellen to provide, and things get even messier after she changes her mind. Worst of all is Ellen’s trip to see Maureen Ogden, a serious hoarder whose son, Nate, paroled years after killing his girlfriend with a frying pan, plans to live with her if everything works out. Catching sight of a hand attached to a female corpse in Maureen’s cluttered home is enough to persuade Ellen instantly that everything’s not going to work out. As usual, Brett develops his mystery in fits and starts, with a particularly lumpy flashback to Ellen’s years of marriage, but he fits most of the pieces together smartly in the end.

Come for the clues, stay for the heroine’s appealingly no-nonsense new voice.