A Murder Most Botanical

A Page-Turning Whodunit of Hidden Motives, a Buried Past, an Unlikely Suspect, and the Secret Worth Killing ForBy Lily Hartwell

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Length7h 3m

About this audiobook

One word, hissed through clenched teeth in the misty green dark of the greenhouse, landed in her chest like a stone. "Petunia." It wasn't a flower they were arguing about. It was a name. A secret. Something Alistair Pemberton did not want anyone alive to know — and within days, it would get him killed. She had only come to arrange the cut flowers for Saturday's Horticultural Show. But Alistair's prize orchids were dying of neglect, his roses black-spotted, the compost cracked dry in the pots. And behind the potting-shed door, a desperate man was begging him for something. "The answer is no," Alistair said, cold and final. "It's always been no. It will always be no." Then the door slammed. The glass rattled in its frame. And soon enough, the man with a fortune in orchids lay dead among his own blooms. The village settles on a tidy answer. The wrong man is arrested, the books are quietly closed, and everyone agrees it is best not to ask. But she knows what she heard in the dripping, lantern-lit dark — and she cannot let a single hissed word stay buried with the body. So she begins to dig. Past the widow's careful silences. Past a locked cabinet and a code named for a flower. Past a rival's revenge, a missing partner's diary, a fire in the orange glass, and a love affair conducted entirely by mail. Everyone in Pemberton had a reason to want Alistair gone. Everyone is lying about something. And the closer she creeps to the secret worth killing for, the more the easy answers totter — and the more dangerous the truth becomes. Because a clever murderer is still tending this garden. And pruning anyone who gets too close. A Murder Most Botanical by Lily Hartwell is a charming, twisty garden-party whodunit about hidden motives, a buried past, simmering village secrets, a sharp amateur sleuth, a wrongful arrest, and a killer hiding behind the roses. Perfect for readers who love cozy English-village mysteries, clever amateur detectives, garden-party intrigue, twisty fair-play whodunits, and the timeless puzzles of Agatha Christie, Richard Osman, and the Darling Dahlias. A standalone cozy mystery with a thoroughly satisfying solution.

Mystery Crime Detective Conspiracy Revenge Small Town Family Hidden Identity Betrayal