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When the couple, and the story, moves to the village of Worth, though, things do start to change. Small town life is not like anything they've ever known, and while that is the whole point of their move, it still takes some getting used to. The locals are a different breed entirely, so it’s a relief when Catherine shows up next door. She is nice. She is normal. She is independent. She doesn’t think the only food worth eating is the sort that comes two-for-a-fiver in the local old man’s pub. In a place where there’s not much going on, Richard and Sarah are thrilled. There’s still nothing to do, but now they at least have a new friend not to do it with. And so the book goes on.
I was a bit undecided about this one, because I couldn’t quite see Richard and Sarah as the people who would make this life changing move in the first place. It all seemed a bit too easy, as if not enough thought had gone into it, and then when, within reason, it worked out, it still seemed like something wasn’t quite right. If you ignore the characters, who of course are quite a fundamental part of the story, then what’s left is a satire of some merit. I didn’t struggle with the reading of it. It never ceased to feel odd to me, but it wasn’t tough to get through. Some parts were even funny, but they seemed bolted on rather than integrated into the story at times, almost as if they were ideas or turns of phrase the author had been thinking about for awhile and was just keen to get into a piece of writing, even if they had to be crow bared crowbarred in.
What let the book down more, I felt, was how slow it seemed, both the happenings and the reactions. When the reaction to the discovery of a body is very much, ''oh dear there’s been a murder, that’s a shame'' you have to wonder exactly what sort of people we’re dealing with here.