Novel set in COPENHAGEN at Christmas
Cozy crime set in the LAKE DISTRICT
5th November 2024
A Lake District Christmas Murder by Rebecca Tope, cozy crime set in the LAKE DISTRICT (mainly Glenridding, Patterdale, Hartsop)
Author Rebecca Tope is well known for her series of cozy crime mysteries set in the Lake District (also a series set in the Cotswolds). This is no.14 and the story is set just a couple of days before Christmas.
Simmy (Persimmon, that is) is a florist and is attending a local, all-inclusive party to mark the Solstice. Her mind is on work and on her child, Robin, when the party-goers are asked to take part in a few ‘rituals’ to wash away the negatives of the past year and focus on the positives. The family is clearly alternative! She is ambivalent about becoming part of the Patterdale social set – they look like a rather mixed bunch, if she is honest. Simmy is sometimes portrayed by the author as quite curt, perhaps a little charmless, even, so she doesn’t seem particularly to relish a great deal of social interaction. She is also struggling on a personal level with the hope of conceiving another child, and the emotional turmoil this causes adds to her distraction.
Photo: Coast to Coast
Shortly after the party, the body of a man is discovered at Gillside, just beyond Glenridding and it looks like murder. She gets all the information from an informal pre-Christmas get together of local women at the White Lion in Patterdale. And the frisson of the discovery is heightened as the temperatures begin to plummet. The scene is set. And then, once she is settling in for Christmas, her new chum Celia arrives on her doorstep with a tiny, abandoned baby, who, it is stipulated in an accompanying note, must be called Jerome. All eyes turn to Diellza, an Albanian woman, lodging with a local family (the day before she happened to be confined to bed with an upset stomach. Hmmmm). With all the events taking place within a couple of days, the locals are agog with hypotheses and suspicions.
This is a quirky read that transports the reader to the Lake District. You can follow the path in your mind’s eye that Simmy takes from her home in Hartsop to Patterdale, and the author casts a generous eye over the glorious scenery. She also dabbles with wider issues like immigration and the impact of tourists and their cars on the area, creating a rounded, easy-to-read story of everyday countryfolk. It is set firmly around the Christmas period but on Twitter X the author is sceptical about the title which the publishers have given this novel (although she asserts that she does like the cover): “Can’t believe the title does it any favours, but there you go”. Readers, however, will have no doubt that this is a story set at Christmas and in the Lake District – short and to the point!
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