• Title: Death in the English Countryside
  • Series: Murder on Location (Book 1)
  • Author: Sara Rosett
  • Date Reviewed on GoodReads: 7/19/2021

**Spoiler Alert** I enjoyed Death in the English Countryside very much. The book was excellently written and the characters were great. The novel actually starts in Los Angeles, where Kate Sharp is a location scout at a small company. She walks into her company's office and is called into the VP's office. Marci, the VP, tells Kate that the head of their company, Kevin Dunn, hasn't returned from his location scouting trip to the UK to look for locations for a new Pride and Prejudice film. Both Kate and Marci know that Kevin is a recovering alcoholic who occasionally slips back into his bad ways, so Marci thinks he's simply on a bender somewhere. She sends Kate to Nether Woodsmoor in the UK to find their boss and bring him home.

Kate arrives in England and begins her search, but no one has seen Kevin. She meets Alex Norcutt, a British location scout who had been working with Kevin. Kate and Alex quickly become partners in crime as he helps her out. Kate searches for Kevin but doesn't find him. He drives Kate to various places to look for more information and points out various locations for Pride and Prejudice they've found along the way. On their way back to the village he stops to show her a stone bridge, and they find Kevin's rented car in the water of the river.

The police arrive, including DCI Quimby. The car is pulled from the water but it's empty. Later, Kevin Dunn's body is found downstream. Quimby interrogates Kate, asking about her relationship with her boss, and asking if anyone in her firm would bump him off to take over the company. Kate is appalled - she's never had any sort of romantic relationship with Kevin. And she takes pains to explain to Quimby that without Kevin her company will implode and everyone who works there (all four of them) will be out of a job.

Kate continues to poke around, often with Alex's help, getting to know people in the village and the various owners of property that Kevin had scouted for the film. Some of the owners really want the business and tourism that a film could bring to their Manor House. Others want nothing to do with "Hollywood nonsense".

Kate befriends Mr. Wallings who owns a country manor house that will be perfect for the film and discovers Kevin had befriended him as well. But Eve who lives in the house and had cared for Mr. Wallings wants nothing to do with movie people. Since he owns the house, Mr. Wallings overrules Eve.

Kate uncovers more and more, including getting Kevin's camera and its memory card. She also helps Beatrice, another woman with a beautiful country manor, when she holds her open house for tours of her manor. There, Kate sees and hears enough to put everything together.

There's a mad dash by Kate and Alex to get to Mr. Wallings' home because they think his life is in danger. They are confronted by the murderer, but in a very nice twist, the police are already there, having set up a sting to catch the murderer, and far from being a victim, Mr. Wallings had figured out what was going on and he was a willing participant in the sting.

I really enjoyed this book. I liked the background information on location scouting - what goes into a film before it even starts to film. It was also interesting to see how the film itself fell apart. And with no project for their company, Premier Locations goes bust. Two employees get jobs in other industries, Marci goes to work for a competitor, and Kate seems stuck until she gets a call from Alex inviting her to the UK to work on a documentary about Jane Austen. This book was exceedingly well-written. I also liked that for cozy with the main character who becomes an unwitting detective, Kate wasn't portrayed as a Miss Marple type or someone with all the answers. She's looking for her boss, and when he shows up dead, she naturally wants to know what happened. Kate and Alex gradually uncover information, but because Alex has to leave himself for a few days to take care of a family emergency and then go on a business trip, it's Kate who puts together the last bits of information. I really liked that. I highly recommend this book.

 This free site is ad-supported. Learn more
​