I was not able to read this book the whole way through to the end, unfortunately.The main character, Thea, was not very sympathetic. She was lacking in vigour and determination. Various threads of her life featured in the book (particularly her relationships with her husband, her father, her daughter, and her brother-in-law) but I couldn't see which threads were relevant to the plot or how they served the theme. I'm not even sure what the theme was. The main plot wandered aimlessly because Thea had no idea how to conduct a murder investigation and the most she could do was keep visiting the neighbours and see if she could learn anything new each time. Her motivation was to seek justice for a man whose life was extinguished and could never be brought back - a parallel with her husband. However, reading about someone who isn't sure what to do next isn't interesting, and even this motivation came across as thin and lacking in impetus.Because she's so depressed after her husband's death, there's no energy about anything she does; e.g. she goes back to sleep after hearing a scream in the night; she won't do the tasks she's supposed to do as a house-sitter; she barely exercises the owners' dogs; and she eats a lot of cheese on toast because she doesn't want to cook. Her policeman brother-in-law's motivation was also unclear. On the one hand he wanted her help with the investigation while on the other he worried that she was in danger and did not hesitate to mention this to her often. One particular scene between her and her brother-in-law puzzles me. He had come to visit (it was his idea in the first place), but he paid little attention to anything she was saying to him. He kept looking at his watch to make sure he didn't stay longer than he could afford, warned her about the danger, and left. I'm not sure what the point of that scene was.In the end, I had to close the book without finishing it because I didn't care enough about the characters or the plot to continue reading to find out who dunnit.
A Cotswold Killing is the first of a new-to-me series by Rebecca Tope, set in England's Cotswold Hills region, a land of small villages and farmland now frequently home to wealthy ex-urbanites who fancy a genteel taste of the country life. Our heroine, Thea Osbourne, was widowed a year ago when her husband was killed in a terrible automobile accident; having taken out life insurance policies as a light-hearted lark, she now finds herself well-off enough to not need to work. But staying at home is no good for her and, encouraged by her policeman brother-in-law James, she advertises as a house-sitter and is soon hired by a rich couple about to embark on a three-week cruise. Thea accepts the job and is handed a meticulous list of things to do, including the care and feeding of a small flock of Cotswold sheep and a pair of lazy labradors. Her expectations of a quiet, even dull, time are almost immediately shattered when during her first night as a house-sitter, a local farmer is murdered on the property just hours after he had introduced himself to her, and when she learns that the man's brother was also murdered on the same property not two months earlier, Thea finds herself making an attempt to solve the crime herself.... I quite enjoyed this novel, initially published in 2004; enough so that I've searched out the other six books in the series. Thea is an interesting character, definitely flawed but with no small amount of curiousity and charm, and the rural English setting is a delight to read about even when it's set in the Internet age. I find myself hoping that some of the characters in this book - Harry Richmond, an older man with a connection to the murdered brothers, for example - will turn up in other books in the series, but even if they don't Thea and her cocker spaniel Hepzibah provide good reading, especially as the autumn approaches. Recommended.
What do You think about A Cotswold Killing (2005)?
I am completely of sound mind and totally, genuinely honest when I say this.. This book is the best Mystery/cozy/Brit book IVE EVER read! I LOVED this book with a passion. I hated for the end to come. I wanted the story to go on and on. So I am glad there are more books after this one.Our main character Thea who is recently widowed, is in her 40s, very intelligent, stands up for herself when its time(mentally), not quick to judge, has a very level head on her shoulders, loves dogs(has a Cocker Spaniel) and was instantly loved by me. Thea is on her first job as House sitter. She is asked to stay in the home for 3 weeks, while the owners are out on holiday. Her first night there in the home while sleeping, she hears a scream and that scream will haunt her as well as the police throughout the story. Who, What, Why, How, Where ect..This is book one in the Cotswold series and I look so forward to the rest. The author, Rebecca Tope, ghost wrote 3 episodes in the Rosemary and Thime mini series over in Britain. That show was SUPERB. Lasted for three seasons. Just FYI, in case you end up loving the author as much as I do now.
—Kimmy Yates
If anyone has ever seen "The Room" by Tommy Wiseau: this comes close to being the book version of that. The story is quite interesting, but the dialogue and characters feel forced: unreal even. I was also hoping for a better and more conclusive ending. Parts were badly written and there were random ideas thrown into the story that lead absolutely nowhere. I did manage to read it in it's entirety, and for that reason I won't give it one star. It's a bad book, the only thing half way good is the plot, but unfortunately way more than that is needed to make a good book.
—Isabel
I looked forward to reading this book because the setting sounded interesting. The setting was interesting but the story wasn't. Our lonely depressed heroine Thea meets a man five minutes after she begins to settle down in the house she is house sitting. He is dead before morning and after rehashing this meeting repeatedly in her mind over the next one hundred fifty pages Thea begins to try and find out what it going aon in the village. All the reader gets in the next two hundred pages is that there is something sinister hovering around. My advice is to read up until the murder then skip 300 pages and read the interesting denouement. Hopefully Thea gets better at her job because at least in this house she was either lazy, disinterested or distracted most of the time.
—Elizabeth
