I picked this up at a used book shop during our aborted Christmas travels; having spent time in the Lake District, specifically, the towns of Windermere, Bowness, and Ableside that this story is set in, it appealed to me instantly.
Alas, it was no more than a drab average. The characters didn't know what they wanted to be: the MC tells an inspector at the beginning she's moved to Windermere after her divorce, that she was childless and insisted that there were "compensations". By the end of the book she's barely coping with the stillborn birth she had 2 years before. Coping and repression are likely, of course, but they aren't part of of the narrative, so the reader is left with no grasp of this MC. The Inspector is either attractive and friendly or greasy-haired and antagonistic. The MC's mother is supposed to be a hippy, but acts more like a criminal attorney; I never once got the impression she liked her daughter. The bride of the story is either flaky, naive and needs to be protected, or a headstrong woman who is the only one that can steer her much older husband's life. Flip-flop.
The elements of the plot were interesting, but the plot itself wasn't anything special. The motivation was pathetic and unbelievable, given the characters, and the murderer pretty obvious after about half-way.
The setting was what I'd hoped for, at least. My memories of the Lake District are still vivid, and I loved the area, so 're-visiting' it through the book kept me picking it back up. This is the first in a series all set here, and while weak, not so bad that should I come across another one at a used book shop, I'd probably pick it up.