It's up to Gemma and Jayne to root out the killer in national
bestselling author Vicki Delany's sixth Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mystery
when the winner of a garden tour trophy is left pushing up daisies.
"I am not a Consulting Detective," Gemma Doyle reluctantly tells
10-year-old Lauren Tierney, when the little girl comes to the Sherlock
Holmes Bookshop and Emporium to beg Gemma to find her missing cat,
Snowball. Gemma might not be able to follow the clues to find the cat,
but her dog Violet follows her nose to locate the missing kitten in a
neighbor's garden shed. Gemma and Violet proudly return Snowball to her
grateful owner, and Gemma basks in praise for a job well done. But a few
days later Lauren is back with ten dollars in hand, wanting to once
again hire a consulting detective, and this time for a far bigger job:
Her mother has been accused of murdering her garden club rival.
Sheila Tierney's garden, which everyone said was the one to beat for the
West London Garden Club trophy, had been vandalized the night before the
club's early summer tour. Sheila confronted her former friend and
gardening partner Anna Wentworth in a towering rage, and the women
nearly came to blows. Later that night, after having won the trophy for
best garden, Anna is found murdered and Sheila Tierney is the police's
prime suspect.
Despite herself, and despite the disapproval of her police detective
boyfriend Ryan Ashburton, the game is once again afoot, and Gemma finds
herself and Jayne Wilson using their powers of deduction to ponder yet
another curious incident.
