Showing results by author "Rebecca Tope" in All Categories

It’s Christmas, and things are looking good at the Slocombe house. Thea’s daughter Jessica has come to stay, much to her stepdaughter Stephanie’s delight. But then things take a turn for the worse. A local family, the Frowses, finds themselves increasingly harassed by an aggressive landlord. When Beverley Frowse goes missing, Thea and Stephanie both feel they should do their best to help her husband and son to solve the mystery.

Following a personal tragedy, florist Persimmon “Simmy” Brown has moved to the Lake District to be nearer her parents. But her peace is shattered when, at a wedding, the bride's brother is found brutally murdered. As the florist of the wedding and one of the last people to talk to Mark Baxter alive, Simmy gradually becomes involved with the relatives. When events take another sinister turn, Simmy finds herself at the heart of a murder investigation.

Thea is tired of having to entertain Drew's children during the summer holidays, so she accepts a commission to watch over a house in Barnsley. On her first day there, she rescues a fugitive woman she finds hiding under some bushes. The woman's story is thin and incoherent, but Thea gives her sanctuary for the night only to find her dead the next morning. The police are impossibly busy with a big investigation into the trafficking of rare animals and Thea is effectively on her own, trying to make sense of the murder.

Thea Osborne sets off to Frampton Mansell with confidence. Despite her first disastrous house-sitting venture, which drew her into a murder investigation, Thea, and her spaniel Hepzibah, are sure of a wonderful stay at the relaxed country estate of the Philipses. But it seems that she’s jinxed. Busying herself with her duties, she finds a body hanging from the rafters of one of the barns. Detective Superintendent Phil Hollis oversees the subsequent investigation and is more than a little surprised to find Thea once again at the scene.

Thea Osborne agrees to do a second spell of house-sitting for Lucy Sinclair in her new home in Northleach. Lucy is scheduled for an operation on her back in Oxford and needs Thea to look after things for a few days. Thea is glad of the change of scene and soon meets several of the townsfolk, and it appears that few of them have any liking for Lucy. When a man is found dead in a Northleach house and turns out to be Lucy's stepson, Thea is once again at the very heart of a police investigation.

Thea Osbourne is only too happy to have a bit of peace and quiet. The only positive thing that came out of her recent house sitting disasters is her blossoming relationship with DI Phil Hollis and she relishes the thought of their spending some quality time together. Even meeting Phil’s childhood acquaintance, the eccentric Ariadne, cannot detract from Thea’s happiness. But the bad luck that plagues the hapless Thea and her beloved spaniel Hepzipah is never far away.

Thea and Drew have been married for a year and are settled in the village of Broad Campden, but Thea is chafing at the domestic routines she is expected to devote herself to, missing the novelty and adventure that house-sitting used to bring. When a routine burial exposes the secrets of the deceased, Drew finds himself caught in the middle of a family feud, in which he feels he is on the wrong side, and Thea's inquisitiveness and penchant for solving crimes draws her in, too.

Simmy Brown has a lot on her mind. Not just keeping her florist business afloat, her father’s failing health and the challenge of developing a long-term relationship with Christopher but also the approach of Mother’s Day, a busy and painful day for her. But in taking an order for a retirement party in Staveley, she is pulled into her most challenging investigation. When a daughter starts accusing her own mother of murder, Simmy, Ben and Bonnie find themselves taking different sides of the investigation. With her relationships under strain, Simmy is tried on all fronts....

When irascible Farmer Guy Beardon meets a very dirty death in his own farmyard, it seems like an accident initially - despite the fact that he was widely disliked. Only his daughter, Lilah, is prepared to defend his memory. And when, slowly, Lilah begins to suspect foul play, no-one is eager to help her investigate. Suspicion becomes certainty when two more deaths occur - and both of them are unmistakably murder. There is certainly no shortage of suspects, and it falls to local Policeman Den Cooper to investigate the mysterious deaths.

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.

Persimmon 'Simmy' Brown's wedding day to Christopher Henderson has arrived on a glorious summer's day in the pretty Lake District village of Threlkeld. While the day passes off without undue calamity, later when most of the guests have departed, a young man is found nearby, possibly the victim of a vicious attack. The mystery of the attack is complicated by pressure on police resources. Was it an accident or something far more sinister? Speculation is rife as to what precisely happened, and a chilling suspicion develops into a theory that might be impossible to prove.

Two days before an auction of the contents of High Gates House in Borrowdale, Christopher Henderson bumps into Jennifer Reade, the heir to the entire estate, and the expected recipient of the proceeds of the house clearance sale. She discovers a dead man in the cellar of the house but threatens and cajoles Christopher into remaining silent about it until after the auction to avoid complications and delays. The auction begins but is soon halted by the police with the news that a murder has been committed.

Nestled in the hills of the Cotswolds, the village of Duntisbourne Abbots is a well-kept secret. When Joel Jennison is found slaughtered in the same field where his brother’s corpse had lain ten weeks previously, a whole community falls under suspicion. Was it a family feud? An act of revenge?

As Christmas draws nearer, Simmy Henderson is invited to a party in Glenridding at the heart of the Lake District. However, the festivities are overshadowed by two alarming discoveries: a man's body in the beck above the village, and a vulnerable newborn baby, apparently abandoned by its mother. Caught in the crosscurrents and tensions of the inhabitants of Glenridding, Simmy is drawn into the investigation. The season of goodwill has been eclipsed by far darker emotions, and a murderer must be found.

A handsome, if slightly shabby, stone house in Upper Oddington is home to Umberto Kingley as well as his three dogs and will be Thea Slocombe's latest house-sitting assignment. Without even a local shop, Thea expects the location to be one of her quietest, until the serene atmosphere is shattered by a fatal hit-and-run. The ensuing high-profile police investigation plunges Thea deep into the victim's complicated family dynamics and the rift that had already torn it apart. And she cannot help wondering if the reverberations of scandal have led to a deliberate and murderous assault.

Thea Osborne has just lost her beloved father and retreats to her next housesitting assignment in Lower Slaughter to deal with her grief. The tranquillity is a welcome backdrop and there's a whole host of animals to help stave off her loneliness. As Thea settles down to two weeks of solitude, her biggest challenges are jigsaw puzzles and fighting off bats in the bedroom - until reality catches up with her.

Thea Osborne reconnects with her friend Emmy while on a visit to the church in Baunton, near Cirencester with her stepdaughter Stephanie. Emmy, now married to local farmer Nick Weaver, asks Thea to help them find their missing niece, Ginny. Before Thea can get started, she stumbles upon the recently killed body of Alice, a woman they had briefly seen in Cirencester the day before.

Thea Osborne and her trusty spaniel, Hepzie, have been asked by the Montgomerys to look after their house in Blockley while they take a much-needed holiday. Their elderly mother, Granny Gardner, shouldn't be any trouble - although she is slightly forgetful. Thea's got far more to worry about when a body is discovered in the house next door.

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. In this expanded view of the world of her popular books, Tope reminds us that death and crime will visit even the most idyllic country villages.

Thea Osborne and her spaniel, Hepzie, are house-sitting in the quiet village of Temple Guiting. Detective Superintendent Phil Hollis is looking forward to visiting for a night or two and celebrating the couple's anniversary. A few days into their stay, a pile of human bones is discovered at the base of an uprooted tree. The locals all have their theories about their identity and rumours abound. Thea and Phil discover that the village turns out to have more than its fair share of secrets.