I think this is one of the best Jilly Cooper books - a murder mystery surrounded by her usual mix of beautiful people, unfaithful lovers and gorgeous settings.Tristan de le Montiguy is in the process of filming the opera, Don Carlos. His father's great friend, Roberto Rannaldini, is directing the music and causing mayhem, as the cast and crew gather at Valhalla to sing and act. Rannaldini has plans to seduce his step-daughter, Tabitha Campbell-Black, but not before he has ruined her life by setting up a marriage with Isa Lovell - two things that he knows will anger his rival, Rupert Campbell-Black. When Tristan falls for Tabby too, Rannaldini tells him an awful secret. At the same time, he devastates the crew and cast, revealing things said in private, outing secrets and setting up lovers, caught in the act. When he is murdered and his watch tower burnt to the ground, there is no end of potential suspects, most people glad that he has gone. As more murders follow and strange things begin to happen on set, it is up to Tristan, Lucy the make-up artist and Gablecross the detective to put the pieces together.This is such a good read. It starts off as the normal romp through Rutshire life and ends up as a tense thriller. The revelation of the actual killer is still a surprise on the second reading and the ending is brilliant. Well worth reading again and again.
I love Jilly Cooper. Her books are just glorious, full of the most joyful prose and splendid similies (and I love anything that's written using the words glorious, splendid and joyful). Her characters are entertaining, compelling and so real, despite for the most part being horrendous charactatures and stereotypes, and weave in and out throughout her 'Rutshire Chronicles' series, either stepping forward to take their turn in the limelight or dropping in like old friends or to reveal their redeemed ways.Rannaldini makes his tyrannical debut in The Man Who Made Husband's Jealous, fully reveals his devious, villinous nature in Apassionata and finally gets his comeuppance in Score!. He's such a great character that killing him off is still a shock, despite it being the entire premise of the book.This has all the hallmarks of Cooper's other boooks; the family rivalries, hidden secrets and lots of saucyness. And it is a proper murder mystery, with plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing right to the end (and you'll keep turning pages just to see who survives!).
Do You like book Score! (1999)?
“What is the French for arsenic and strychnine?” murmured Granny, who was pointedly ignoring both of them.“Arsenic and strychnine,” said Oscar, walking up to slot Gauloise into him jade cigarette holder. “Malevolence is universal.”The book was long, 789 pages, which is good for a novel. I like long books, because I read so quickly (all though, lately I haven’t been reading as much). But there were SO MANY characters. In fact, at the beginning of her books, Cooper does a character list. In this, there is 82 characters listed. Honestly. No book needs to many people in it. It makes it so that you don’t actually like or care about any of them because it’s skipping around so often.Also, a murder mystery, the victim didn’t get killed until over halfway through the book. So for some 450 pages, there was just a mass of people doing fuck knows what because I couldn’t be asked to actually follow because I didn’t care. The end was decent, made me want to read instead of keep putting it down as I had been.
—Tory
