Many gardeners spend winter planning the springtime clearing and planting. Early spring in Goosebush, Massachusetts, serves the now-approaching senior sleuth Lilly Jayne a surprise in THE PLOT THICKETS.
While I had not read all the earlier books, THE PLOT THICKETS, the fifth book in the Garden Squad Mystery series, held closely to concepts in the second book, TILLING THE TRUTH, which involved a local nature reserve. Goosebush is a coastal town that is changing with the times. Land is being subdivided and extra homes are being built. Now it turns out that something similar may be happening quietly in the cemetery. Whitney Dunne-Bradford has inherited the respectable Bradford Funeral Home but she isn’t making many friends, due to her temperamental ways. The town council has allowed the funeral home to take charge of the cemetery. Lilly Jayne has to start investigating when some of the family tombstones don’t seem to be as she remembers, and the Jayne family mausoleum has been disturbed.
Time has marched on, and Lilly feels stiff from a few hours of gardening. She also feels she can’t trust her memory. Some of this is related to her advancing age, and some is a sly plot device by author Julia Henry, to introduce uncertainty. The good neighbor Roddy Lyden, divorced and retired, is features prominently, and we hear about his earlier life and some rash decisions. Other kind folks are Helen Garret, a centenarian winding down her life, and Delia Greenway, who helps Lilly with active matters and is dating the manager of a café and arts space, Stan Freeland. We also meet funeral home employee, Dewey Marsh, and Whitney’s stepdaughter Sasha who owns a proportion of the business. There are plenty more folks in town, but these are the core characters, along with members of the gardening club which, it must be said, works for free so does landscapers out of work.
I enjoyed the public park being reimagined into a community space with running tracks, ice rink, and other facilities. Plenty of great ideas for anyone thinking of upgrading local amenities. The old water pipes need replacing, and all these details which cost money aren’t visible to the end user. And there is an emphasis on local and family history, which will delight many readers. THE PLOT THICKETS shows you can indeed find murder and malice in a thicket, so keep your pruning shears handy. Any gardening fans will have a good time with this clever cozy mystery.
Springtime—and another murder case—comes to Goosebush, Massachusetts, in Julia Henry’s latest installment in the Garden Squad Mystery cozy series featuring sixty-something gardener Lilly Jayne!
With spring’s arrival in Goosebush, Lilly and the Beautification Committee turn their eyes to new projects. A cleanup of the historic Goosebush Cemetery may be in order, after Lilly and Delia find the plots there sorely neglected and inexplicably rearranged. Lilly soon discovers that Whitney Dunne-Bradford snapped up custodianship of the graveyard once she inherited Bradford Funeral Homes. But before Lilly can get to the bottom of the tombstone tampering, she stumbles upon Whitney’s body at the Jayne family mausoleum . . .
Though at first it appears Whitney died by suicide, Lilly has doubts, and apparently, so does Chief of Police Bash Haywood, who quickly opens a murder investigation. Plenty of folks in town had bones to pick with Whitney, including her stepdaughter, Sasha, and funeral home employee, Dewey Marsh—all three recently charged with illegal business practices. But when the homicide inquiry suddenly targets an old friend, Lilly and the Garden Squad must rally to exhume the truth before the real killer buries it forever . . .
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