Rebecca Tope is a British crime novelist and journalist. She is the author of three murder mystery series, featuring the fictional characters of Den Cooper, a Devon police detective; Drew Slocombe, a former nurse, now an undertaker; Thea Osborne, a house sitter in the Cotswolds; and Persimmon Brown, a florist in the

Lake District The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests, and mountains (or ''fells''), and its associations with William Wordswor ...

. Tope is also ghost writer of the novels based on the

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

series ''

Rosemary and Thyme ''Rosemary & Thyme'' is a British television cosy mystery thriller series starring Felicity Kendal and Pam Ferris as gardening detectives Rosemary Boxer and Laura Thyme. The show began on ITV in 2003. The third series ended in August 2007. ...

''.

Background

Rebecca Tope was born on 2 October 1948, in Worcestershire, and has lived in many parts of England since then. She has nearly 40 crime novels in print, published by Allison & Busby. Her two main series are set in the

Cotswolds The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Jur ...

and the

, both featuring amateur female detectives. She lives on a smallholding in Herefordshire, but has had no livestock for some years. The acres have been returned to the wildlife, which includes a lot of brambles and thistles. She founded a small press, Praxis Books, in 1992, which has concentrated almost exclusively on reissuing the works of Sabine Baring-Gould (1834–1924). She has also written and published a definitive biography of Baring-Gould. Tope's hobbies mainly centre around wool, antique auctions and travel.

Bibliography

The Cotswold Mysteries

*''A Cotswold Killing'' 23 May 2005, Allison & Busby *''A Cotswold Ordeal'' 31 October 2006, Allison & Busby *''Death in the Cotswolds'' 28 April 2008, Allison & Busby *''A Cotswold Mystery'' 28 August 2008, Allison & Busby *''Blood in the Cotswolds'' 7 September 2009, Allison & Busby *''Slaughter in the Cotswolds'' 22 February 2010, Allison & Busby *''Fear in the Cotswolds'' 13 September 2010, Allison & Busby *''Grave in the Cotswolds'' 4 April 2011, Allison & Busby *''Deception in the Cotswolds'' (re-issued) 26 March 2012, Allison & Busby *''Malice in the Cotswolds'' 26 March 2012, Allison & Busby *''Shadows in the Cotswolds'' 25 March 2013, Allison & Busby *''Trouble in the Cotswolds'' 24 March 2014, Allison & Busby *''Revenge in the Cotswolds'' 19 March 2015, Allison & Busby *''Guilt in the Cotswolds'' 24 March 2016, Allison & Busby *''A Cotswold Casebook'' (short stories) 20 April 2017, Allison & Busby *''Peril in the Cotswolds'' 24 August 2017, Allison & Busby *''Crisis in the Cotswolds'' 19 April 2019, Allison & Busby *''Secrets in the Cotswolds'' 24 August 2019, Allison & Busby *''A Cotswold Christmas Mystery'' (forthcoming)

West Country Mysteries

*''A Dirty Death'' Reprint edition 28 May 2012, Allison & Busby *''Dark Undertakings'' 28 May 2012, Allison & Busby *''Death of a Friend'' Reprint edition 28 May 2012, Allison & Busby *''Grave Concerns'' 7 February 2011, Allison & Busby *''A Death to Record'' 28 May 2012, Allison & Busby *''The Sting of Death'' Reprint edition 7 February 2011, Allison & Busby *''A Market for Murder'' Reprint edition 7 February 2011, Allison & Busby

Lake District Mysteries

*''The Windermere Witness'' 26 November 2012, Allison & Busby *''The Ambleside Alibi'' 26 August 2013, Allison & Busby *''The Coniston Case'' 24 July 2014, Allison & Busby *''The Troutbeck Testimony'' 21 May 2015, Allison & Busby *''The Hawkshead Hostage'' 19 May 2016, Allison & Busby *''The Bowness Bequest'' 18 May 2017, Allison & Busby *''The Staveley Suspect'' 19 April 2018, Allison & Busby *''The Grasmere Grudge'' 21 March 2019, Allison & Busby *''The Patterdale Plot'' 20 February 2020, Allison & Busby *’’The Threlkeld Theory’’ 2022, Allison & Busby {{ISBN 978-0749028619

Ghostwritten

Three novelisations of ''

'', credited to ITV series creator Brian Eastman, which were published in Britain by Allison and Busby and in Australia by Hardie Grant Books: * ''And No Birds Sing'' (published in 2004, based on the pilot episode) Allison & Busby {{ISBN, 978-0749083410 * ''The Tree of Death'' (published in 2005, based on the final episode of Series 1) Allison & Busby {{ISBN, 978-0749081409 * ''Memory of Water'' (published in 2006, based on the feature-length opening episode of Series 2) Allison & Busby {{ISBN, 978-0749081270

Awards

*2009 Longlisted for Crimefest (International Crime Fiction Convention) "Sounds of Crime (unabridged)" for ''Blood in the Cotswolds'' (read by Caroline Lennon) *2010 Longlisted for Crimefest "eDunnit Award" for ''Fear in the Cotswolds'' *2010 Longlisted for Crimefest "Sounds of Crime longlist – unabridged" for ''Slaughter in the Cotswolds'' (read by Caroline Lennon) *2011 Longlisted for Crimefest "eDunnit Award" for ''A Grave in the Cotswolds'' *2011 Longlisted for Crimefest "Sounds of Crime longlist – unabridged" for ''A Grave in the Cotswolds'' (read by Caroline Lennon) *2012 Longlisted for Crimefest "Audible Sounds of Crime" for ''Deception in the Cotswolds'' (read by Caroline Lennon) *2012 Longlisted for Crimefest "Goldsboro Last Laugh Award" for ''Deception in the Cotswolds'' *2012 Longlisted for Crimefest "eDunnit Award" for ''Deception in the Cotswolds''{{cite web, url=http://www.crimefest.com/awards_2012.html , title=crime fiction convention in Bristol, UK , publisher=Crimefest , year=2012 , accessdate=2012-10-08

References

{{Reflist

External links

*{{Official website, http://www.rebeccatope.com/ {{Authority control {{DEFAULTSORT:Tope, Rebecca Living people English women journalists British crime journalists 21st-century English novelists 1964 births English women novelists 21st-century English women writers Women crime writers