callmemadam | The Red Book of Primrose House, Marty Wingate

When I reviewed The Garden Plot, I said I hoped for a series about gardener Pru Parke. My wish has been granted and here is the second book. We left Pru having been offered a proper head gardener's job at last and very attracted to policeman Christopher Pearse. Now, she’s working at Primrose House on the restoration of a Humphry Repton garden (Red Book, geddit?) and she and Christopher are definitely an item.

Poor Pru, whenever she starts work in a garden there’s trouble. First what appears to be vandalism, then a murder for which half her work force seem to be suspects. As before, everyone except silly old Pru believes that she is in danger herself. She is. As if trying to restore an old garden and find a murderer weren’t enough, Pru has a mission of her own: trying to track down possible relatives of her English mother. This leads her to discover uncomfortable secrets in her own family history which she had no idea about. Luckily, she now has Christopher to lean on.

What I like about these books is that all the gardening detail is so accurate. That’s because Marty Wingate wrote non-fiction gardening books before turning to mysteries, so she really knows her stuff. The Red Book of Primrose House will be published by Alibi on 4th November. I read it courtesy of NetGalley. Roll on Potting Shed Mystery Three.