Why a Booktrail?
2000s: If you have ever wanted to peek behind the curtains of middle England then this is the book for you!
The Deaths
What you need to know before your trail
(Fictional) Middlebury in Buckinghamshire is a small village with houses which are referred to as ‘ the best fuck off houses in Bucks’ Setting the tone therefore for the social commentary and the ‘posh’ location and the people in it. The story focuses on four houses – all mirror images of each other and where the people inside do nothing more than ensure they keep up with the joneses. They all have high flying jobs and appear to have the ideal lifestyle. But appearances can be deceptive.
As the title suggests, there are a series of deaths in this quiet and unassuming place. But who has been murdered and why?
Travel Guide
The setting may be fictional in name but in spirit it’s middle England and more – oh those rolling hills and the lush green countryside, the posh houses and the white picket fences. Well we’re getting carried away but you get the idea.
The very fact that the delivery driver for coffee capsule company CapuccinGo should discover the murders is a sign of the book’s essence. The world of designer coffee may in fact be classed as the backdrop here for it’s the coffee that’s at the centre of the plot – the choice of the coloured capsules, the deliveries, the fashion of the coffee choice, the coffee snobs and the supermarket class system (yes indeed)
The houses are those that you would walk past along the street – no, rather along a treelined avenue and attempt to peak inside to see how the other half live. Oh and since we are people-watchers at the best of times, this part of the novel was fascinating. After the murders, a bit of a car crash waiting to happen and isn’t that the type of watching that we all can get interested in?
The other interesting ‘setting’ is the world of designer coffee
Not a book for ‘setting’ in a physical sense but you will leave knowing a lot more about the satire of the middle classes of England!
Where Next?
