Random House
Featuring: Batty Bede; Coral Summersun; Pru Parke
261 pages ISBN: 1101968079 EAN: 9781101968079 Kindle: B01MSAATUW e-Book Add to Wish List
I previously enjoyed books in the Potting Shed Mystery series and as
well as in the Birds of A Feather series by popular author Marty
Wingate, so I was delighted to dig up another mystery to solve. This is
the sixth novel featuring an American garden designer who moves to
work in England, named Pru Parke, who discovers that her
BEST-LAID PLANTS don't always
blossom.
With her police officer husband Christopher, Pru is invited to stay in a
Cotswolds guesthouse by a stranger called Coral Summersun who has
heard of the garden designer. They encounter an old flame of
Christopher's who acts surprisingly friendly, as they dated briefly
twenty years ago. Or is there something Pru doesn't know? For the
moment she sticks to work, sizing up the garden at Glebe House, which
needs a great deal of restoration. Pru starts to explore the historical
background of the garden, and of Coral and her uncle, Batty Bede, who
also lives there.
For me, just reading the description of the neglected formal garden is a
treat; the Thyme Walk, Snowdrop Path, Italianate stonework, Acer
Corner, Irish yew hedging. If you're a garden lover, you won't need any
more encouragement to pick up a copy of this adventure. Adding
tensions are badger issues, inheritance claims, and local romances.
The death that Pru encounters seems the more tragic for occurring out
in the garden, but maybe for a nature lover, that would be a good place
to breathe your last.
The books generally feature tasty local foods, so I was pleased to see
Pru learning to prepare pork chops in cider, damson pudding, sponge
with rhubarb and custard, and other English fare. Winter is approaching
and this is a good time for gardeners to tidy up, make planting plans,
and store herbs. Someone has laid other plans of a quite different
nature, and if Pru uncovers them she may be dead too.
Marty Wingate has written several nonfiction gardening books, and her
experience really shows. She doesn't stint from describing the creeping
weeds and amount of work required to restore an old garden, nor the
hidden small beauties when you know where to look.
BEST-LAID PLANTS actually feels to
me like a modern day Agatha Christie, but presents a Texan lady in a
role Christie would never have considered; like one of the characters
we meet, her characters would have called gardeners "staff" and not
invited them into the house. Fans of amateur sleuth books in an English
village setting will adore the read whether they like gardens or not, but
gardeners will go potty for it.
A trip to the English countryside turns into a brush with
death for Pru Parke, the only gardener whose holiday
wouldn’t be complete without a murder to solve.
Pru and her husband, former Detective Chief Inspector
Christopher Pearse, are long overdue for a getaway. So when
Pru is invited to redesign an Arts and Crafts garden in the
picturesque Cotswolds, she and Christopher jump at the
chance. Unfortunately, their B&B is more ramshackle than
charming, and the once thriving garden, with its lovely
Thyme Walk, has fallen into heartbreaking neglect. With the
garden’s owner and designer, Batsford Bede, under the
weather, Pru tackles the renovation alone. But just as she’s
starting to make headway, she stumbles upon Batsford’s body
in the garden—dead and pinned beneath one of his limestone
statues.
With such a small police force in the area, Christopher is
called upon to lead the investigation. Pru can’t imagine
anyone murdering Batsford Bede, a gentle man who preferred
to spend his time in quiet contemplation, surrounded by
nature. But as her work on the garden turns up one ominous
clue after another, Pru discovers that the scenery is more
dangerous than she or Christopher could have anticipated.
Has anyone sampled the various product mentioned here, and can they tell which one is the best? Best Weber Grills (Jeffrey Thomas 4:16am October 31, 2019)
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