Murder at the Garden Cafe: A 1920s Historical Cozy Mystery

When the walled garden behind Meadowbrook Hollow's old rectory is turned into an elegant cafe, proprietress Josie Fairleigh arrives expecting nothing stronger than a cup of Darjeeling and a business proposal. Instead, she finds the cafe's charming owner dead among his own delphiniums before the first pot has cooled, with a single slice of poisoned cake overturned in the grass beside him.

With her corgi Toffee sniffing out clues the local detectives overlook, Josie is drawn into a tangle of horticultural rivalry, a rushed property sale, and a decade-old scandal that followed its keeper all the way from London. Every guest at that garden party carried a secret worth killing to protect, and Josie was one of the last people to speak with the victim before he died.

As the suspect list narrows and a warning note lands on her own doorstep, Josie must untangle a knot of buried grief and calculated deception before the killer decides one more loose end needs pulling, and before Detective Inspector Julian Thackeray loses someone he's only just realized he can't do without.

For readers who enjoy a slow-burn romance, a garden filled with secrets, and an amateur sleuth who never goes searching for trouble without a pot of tea, this 1920s historical cozy mystery is a warm, twisty addition to the Lady Josie Fairleigh Murder Mystery series. Pour yourself a cup, settle in, and read Murder at the Garden Cafe to discover if you can uncover the killer before Josie does.