A Cotswold Casebook

Thea Osborne #15.5

by Rebecca Tope

Set in the rolling hills and villages of the Cotswolds and brimming with warmth and intrigue, this collection of twelve short stories from Rebecca Tope features familiar characters and places from her popular Cotswold Mystery novels. A suspicious funeral, a fatal encounter at a garden centre, and a country walk marred by the discovery of a hidden corpse, are just some of the perplexing situations with which Thea Osborne, her friends and a further cast of characters must contend. Including ‘The Blockley Discovery’ and ‘With Slaughter in Mind’, A Cotswold Casebook reminds us that death and crime will visit even the most idyllic country villages.

Genres: Mystery, British Literature, Short Stories

262 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 20, 2016

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

[Pam Baddeley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of short stories which feature various characters from the Cotswolds series with some overlap with the Drew Slocombe series (since his series merged with the Cotswolds one after A Grave in the Cotswolds).

Some times the various volumes in the series have had slight problems with pacing, but the author works well in this short length with lots of different vignettes of Cotswolds life and crime. Some are more effective than others; I particularly liked a vivid sequence of what happened at a wedding breakfast - thought the author could have reserved that one for the start of a novel actually, making it less clear who 'dunnit' of course - and the final story which ended the collection with a very good twist on the perfect murder.

As a minor spoiler, by the time these stories are set Thea and Drew are at last married. All in all a good addition to the series.

[Inken · Rating 1 out of 5]

I haven't read anything else by Ms Tope so I can only hope her other writing is better than this. These stories, whilst set in very familiar surroundings, are dull, unsatisfying and childish. Huge waste of money.

[Pepita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Covered the 'short story' component of my lists!

[Cathy Quigg · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took a bit longer to read this as it was easier to put down between stories. This is a nice option to read after the other books. Characters from the other books are brought in to the stories here and it provides more depth to have read the books in order. This series has been an easy, distracted read during these time of covid-19 quarantine. Enough to take your mind off the serious crisis going on around the whole world, but not serious enough to require intense concentration. The books have been downloadable for free from my local library and I thank both the library and the author for this lightweight diversion.

[Bookfan53 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I much preferred this book to The Staveley Suspect (The Lake District Mysteries) which I had not enjoyed at all.
A Cotswold Casebook had various mysteries and gave an insight into village life too. The stories were quite different, did not all feature murder and I found this a nice lighter read.
I would say though that I think from this book, that you really need to read the series(Cotswold Mysteries) beginning from Book 1, there was much that did not quite make sense even though I liked the stories. I think this was because I had not read any of the previous books in the series. If you like cozy village crime and a light read, this series may be for you.

[Thea · Rating 2 out of 5]

The stories were okay and entertaining but not enough to keep me reading to the end of the book. I felt that the characters lacked emotional engagement with some of the events around them, events that were tragic or brutal enough to warrant a substantial emotional response, which made numerous characters come across as cold and unfeeling.

[Anne Tanner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short stories, each with a body involved. A bit much one after the other, unrelenting. Also, Thea seems to be the book version of Jessica Tate, I wouldn’t want to invite her into my house, for fear of what bad thing she might bring. How does her husband cope?😁.

[Maureen Hillier · Rating 5 out of 5]

easily readable and good to take to bed...

[Margaret Haigh · Rating 1 out of 5]

A disappointing compilation of short stories that added very little to this series

[AmyLeong · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bit annoying but engaging till the end.

[Susan Rogers]

An enjoyable set of stories.

[Kate Hopkins · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. Got to chapter (short story} 5 and realised that I wasn’t really enjoying it - all a bit sad and stories with unsatisfactory endings. Not really my bag.

[Raine · Rating 3 out of 5]

lots going on in such a short book!