The Dacre Dilemma: The enthralling English cosy crime series

Lake District #15

by Rebecca Tope

Simmy is four months pregnant, working partly from home and partly from her Windermere florist shop when her husband Christopher asks her to take flowers to Eleanor Padgett.

Eleanor has helped him in his auction house, as she is an expert in antique textiles. She lives near the church at Dacre, and Simmy meets her in the nearby churchyard.

But when they notice the body of a young man by one of the gravestones, the happy outing turns dark. It is not long before Simmy once again finds herself in a complex and puzzling investigation, led by DI Moxon and aided by her friends Ben and Bonnie.

Paperback

Published January 22, 2026

About the author

Rebecca Tope is best known as the author of over twenty crime novels. She has also recently produced the e-book entitled 'The Indifference of Tumbleweed'. She has every intention of continuing with the murder stories, as well as a variety of other kinds of fiction.

She has experienced many different kinds of work in her time - running antenatal classes, counselling troubled couples and being an office girl for an undertaker, for example. There were also several years monitoring the output of dairy cows, as well as every sort of task associated with book publishing. In 1992, she founded Praxis Books, a small British press.

She lives surrounded by trees she has planted herself, tending her own sheep.

Reviews

[Edwina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn’t finish this. I really tried and got half way. I enjoyed the characters and setting though felt it was extremely slow.

[Tripfiction · Rating 4 out of 5]

Murder mystery set in the LAKE DISTRICT



Rebecca Tope is well known for writing crime mysteries with a good sense of place. The Dacre Dilemma is no.15 in The Lake District Mystery Series and she also pens series set elsewhere in England: The Cotswold Mysteries and The West Country Mysteries.

This is a welcome return to familiar characters. Simmy is married to Christopher, who is in the auction business. She herself runs a flower shop and is deliberating expansion, but given her personal circumstances at the moment, she is feeling rather overwhelmed by the prospect. It might mean them moving from where they are settled in their converted barn in Hartsop, where Simmy truly feels at home. A house move isn’t an option she is keen to explore.

Christopher has asked her to deliver some flowers to the sexagenarian, Eleanor Pagett, who is restoring textiles at Dacre Castle. She chooses cosmos, freesias and lilies and then has to seek out the “perky yellow camper van”  in which the older woman is currently living. Locating it by Dacre’s graveyard, Simmy makes her acquaintance and is persuaded to peek at the bears, carved years ago and now, due to wear and tear, only recognisable to those who know; or nearby there is Dalemain, the “marmalade palace” (The World Marmalade Awards, founded by Jane Hasell-McCosh, are held annually at Dalemain), so it is clear that, as a reader, you will pick up interesting nuggets of local knowledge, which the author delightfully likes to include in the narrative.

As they explore the graveyard, It is unfortunately Simmy’s two year old son Robin who spots the ‘red man’ lying on the ground. And thus she will have to once again don her sleuthing cape.

She discovers more about the dead young man and his provenance, she has a fair idea of the people who might have had it in for him, and she works once again with her familiar partner in the police force, DI Moxon.

This is a nicely penned series that blends family life with gentle amateur sleuthing, all set against a great Lake District backdrop. The novel can be read as a standalone.

[Elizabeth Sirett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simmy is pregnant and trying to juggle arranging childcare for her two-year old son Robin and running her florist shop in Windermere. The last thing she needs right now is to get dragged into a murder investigation. She has no choice. She and Eleanor Pagett were the ones who discovered the body covered in blood in the churchyard in the small village of Dacre.

It doesn’t help her state of mind when Simmy’s mother is involved in a car accident and is taken to hospital in Carlise. Her father is in no fit state to drive all that way on a daily basis and moves in with Simmy and her family.

Her husband Christopher, Ben who helps out in Christopher’s auction house and Simmy’s assistant in the flower shop Bonnie are all keen to help in the investigation. The team have worked with DI Moxton in the past helping to solve puzzling cases. There are plenty of suspects to consider and Simmy finds herself alone in feeling that Eleanor is hiding something.

This is the fifteenth in Rebecca Tope’s highly engaging Lake District Series and it’s always a pleasure to meet up with the large cast of fully rounded characters who continue to develop in each new story. Newcomers to this series will have no difficulty in getting to grips with these engaging individuals.

A Rebecca Tope novel, be it one of her Lake District, Cotswold or West Country Mysteries is a guarantee of a complex, page turning plot that will keep the reader guessing until the last page.

A thoroughly enjoyable read which I heartily recommend.
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Reviewer: Judith Cranswick
For Lizzie Sirett (Mystery People Group)

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read most of Rebecca Tope's novels and enjoyed them all. As with most rural crime fiction, readers do have to suspend disbelief. RT's great strength for me is the characters she creates. And the domestic settings. The Dacre Dilemma is no exception. Another attraction is the development of characters' lives. They age, probably not in real time I haven't checked, move house, get married, get jobs and so on. The disadvantage of a series can be should you start with book number 1 and methodically work your way through? Will it matter if you just dive in anywhere? I first encountered RT's books through reading one of the Cotswold Mysteries; certainly not the first one. I have read The Lake District Mysteries from book 1 to book 15 which is this one. I don't think it really matters but what would be useful is a brief CV for each character so if you dive in to the series half way through you don't spend forever trying to unravel who's who. Regardless of that I'm hooked and await the next adventure.

[Denise Bonham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely Settings and Great Characters. Good cosy crime novel.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable read .

[JenniferB · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good example of the series, although plot a bit strange, and still strange that such a group of the public are involved in solving murders. Enjoyed it though, good development of characters.

[Rowena Onions · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thankfully, this book is much better than the last book and has reminded me of what made me like the series.

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy this as much as the others in the series. Felt like it didn't really go anywhere.

[Karen Little · Rating 2 out of 5]

For me not a great read. A lot of faffing, not much investigation until chapters from the end - main characters pretty insipid and do a lot of navel gazing.

[Judith Cranswick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Rebecca Tope novel, be it one of her Lake District, Cotswold or West Country Mysteries is a guarantee of a complex, page turning plot that will keep the reader guessing until the last page.

A thoroughly enjoyable read which I heartily recommend.