Mavis Cheek, who has died aged 75, was the author of a series of comic novels that cast an acute eye on middle-class marriage and relationships and marked her out as one of the wittiest commentators of her generation.
She began writing journalism and short stories in the 1980s and published her first novel after an agent advised her that she was funny and should write as she spoke. Pause Between Acts was published in 1988, winning the She/John Menzies prize for a first novel, and 14 books followed.
