Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: The Winter Garden Mystery by Carola Dunn

The Winter Garden Mystery by Carola Dunn (St. Martins, 1995) is the second historical mystery featuring the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple, who decides to earn her living by writing feature articles about some of England’s old homes, using her social connections to gain access to them. In 1923 this was a radical step for one of her social position but one she felt she had to take after the death of her father during the flu pandemic of 1919 sent the title to a distant cousin. Her brother and her fiancé both died during World War I, leaving Daisy with no close family beyond her mother.

On her second adventure she visits Occles Hall in Cheshire, home of a school acquaintance whose confrontational mother terrifies everyone. Lady Valeria disdains Daisy’s bid for independence and secretly fears her children might choose to follow her to escape their mother’s tight hold. However, she cannot resist the idea of seeing her model home and village featured in the latest issue of Town and Country magazine. So Daisy is allowed to visit but must listen to Lady Valeria’s endless strictures while she takes notes on the hall’s history and photographs its exterior and gardens.

Daisy is in the winter garden, a sheltered corner of the property where flowers bloom even in January, when the body of the housemaid who disappeared two months earlier is discovered. Grace Moss was supposed to have run off with a travelling salesman she’d been seen talking to at the local pub. No one in the village was particularly surprised at the time: her mother did the same thing to escape Grace’s abusive father. But the discovery of her body was a surprise and a shock to everyone, even more so when the autopsy reveals her pregnancy.

Lady Valeria bulldozes the local police into a quick arrest and she is well on her way to railroading an innocent man when Daisy quietly calls Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard, whom Daisy met on her first adventure. Fletcher is a widowed policeman well below Daisy’s social status and some ten years her senior, but they have stayed in touch. Fletcher finds a way to insert Scotland Yard into the investigation and promptly destroys the flimsy case against the arrested man while discovering the true culprit.

This is one of my favorite historical series. Dunn touches on the hardships of the post-war years without dwelling on them, giving the books authenticity via sideways looks at the war’s aftermath rather than a full bore spotlight on the misery and social upheaval caused by the loss of an entire generation of young men. The mystery is well written and definitely cozy, not a lot of gore, pleasant characters mostly, and happy endings for nearly everyone. A nice choice for winter reading by the fire with a cup of tea and a cat nearby.

·         Hardcover: 226 pages

·         Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1st edition (May 1, 1995)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 0312132174

·         ISBN-13: 978-0312132170

Aubrey Hamilton ©2018

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.