A competition for the village’s best garden is interrupted by the discovery of a dead body. Does Cleo’s death have a connection to another death 25 years ago?
Mystery on Meadowsweet Grove is the 12th book to feature obituary writer and amateur sleuth Eve Mallow.
Secrets, lies, hidden tunnels, affairs, personal and professional animosity, a suspicious death in the past: this book has it all! Eve is inundated with suspects and motives as she begins to investigate the life and death of jeweller Cleo Marbeck. She is ably supported as always by her beau Robin and dachshund Gus as well as other villagers who have joined her friendship group over the series of books.
There are plenty of plot threads and secrets to reveal so the mystery is sustained until the end of the book. The writing style is easy to read and the village life felt authentic. The deaths are not described in graphic detail, in keeping with the cosy crime genre. I liked the emphasis on the characters and their relationships for underpinning the plot and resolution of the case.
Mystery on Meadowsweet Grove is an enjoyable cosy murder mystery in the English countryside.
Saxford St Peter is having an open gardens day! But one of the villagers has murder, not marigolds, in mind… And now Eve Mallow needs to unearth a killer.
Everyone in Saxford is delighted when jeweller Cleo Marbeck suggests a prize for the village’s best garden. Flowers are planted, grass is cut, and the competition is on. But the event only digs up dirt… Twenty-five years ago, a young woman fell to her death in Cleo’s house, and rumours soon resurface about Cleo’s part in the tragedy.
Eve’s best friend Viv is hosting Stevie, her son’s fiancée, ahead of the wedding. On the open garden day, Stevie has a horrible flashback: the memory of a woman lying at the bottom of a staircase. But she sees it in a totally different house from the one where Honor died…
Hours later Cleo’s body is found, drowned in her own pond. Almost everyone in Saxford has been in and out of her garden, sowing suspicion everywhere. But Eve is convinced the flashback has triggered the crime… and when the police turn their sights on Stevie, she’ll have to work fast to solve the case and save the wedding.
So who wanted Cleo in the ground? The son of the woman who died, out for revenge? The employee passed over for promotion? Her long-term lover, who she refused to marry? And why do so many suspects live on Meadowsweet Grove?
When someone else takes a tumble downstairs, Eve knows she’s close to grubbing up the truth. But can she catch the killer or is she heading for a fatal fall?
A page-turning and completely charming English cozy mystery, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, Faith Martin and Sarah Yarwood-Lovett.
Author Bio
Clare Chase writes classic mysteries. Her aim is to take readers away from it all via some armchair sleuthing in atmospheric locations.
Her debut novel was shortlisted for Novelicious’s Undiscovered Award, as well as an EPIC award post-publication, and was chosen as a Debut of the Month by LoveReading. Murder on the Marshes (Tara Thorpe 1) was shortlisted for an International Thriller Writers award.
Like her heroines, Clare is fascinated by people and what makes them tick. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked in settings as diverse as Littlehey Prison and the University of Cambridge, in her home city. She’s lived everywhere from the house of a lord to a slug-infested flat and finds the mid-terrace she currently occupies a good happy medium.
As well as writing, Clare loves family time, art and architecture, cooking, and of course, reading other people’s books.
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