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.
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