Customer Reviews

A Cotswold Ordeal

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While searching for a new author after having read (multiple times as my wife likes to point out) the classic British mysteries, I ordered this book. The new "recipe" mystery genre suffers from the obvious limitation: everything has to fit into the recipe. This author fails miserably to produce a book with any coherence, decent writing style, believable characters, or compelling human interest. The protagonist is a ditzy 40-something who seems to fall in love at the drop of a proverbial hat. Her policeman hero is staggeringly stupid as a policeman and unbelievable as a man. Ancillary characters float into view apparently out of cliche heaven: the overbearing mistress of the manse, evil locals intent on covering up murder, strange sexual perversions from a completely normal person, etc.

Having lived in the Cotswolds for 10 years, I was at least hoping for something that would excite in me the beauty and interest of the area. Canals seem to run through the story, but other than some pedantic comments on the benefits to wildlife there is little evocation of the fantasy of a canal. And, of course, this canal is abandoned and dry, much like the book.

I usually donate books which I am not keeping for my library to the local hospital. I will spare the patients this one.

A well written British Cozy. Intriguing characters and nicely developed plot. Tope is one of my favorites.