A CURIOUS INCIDENT

A search for a missing cat entangles an inveterate sleuth in another case of murder.

After a trip to her native England, where she solved her last case, Gemma Doyle is back on Cape Cod with her boyfriend, police detective Ryan Ashburton, and her friend Jayne Wilson, who partly owns and runs Mrs. Hudson’s Tea Room with her. (Busy Gemma also owns the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium with her great uncle Arthur.) Having heard of her reputation as a sleuth, 10-year-old Lauren Tierney begs Gemma to help find her missing cat. Gemma’s dog, Violet, sniffs out the feline, but things don’t go as easily when Lauren’s mother, Sheila, is suspected of murdering her rival, Anna Wentworth, whom she had loudly accused of vandalizing her plantings before their garden club's annual competition. Horticulturally obsessed Sheila will win no awards for mother or wife of the year, but Gemma doubts she’s a killer. Although Ryan has benefitted from Gemma’s help in the past, his partner wants no part of her interference. It doesn’t matter, for her curiosity won’t let her ignore the case. Despite her lack of a green thumb, Gemma is forced to learn more about gardens when someone tries to kill her with lemonade spiked with what she suspects is a botanical poison. She digs up some other motives for Anna's murder, but can she find the evidence to back up her conclusions?

This sixth installment pursues the same pleasing formula: cozy detection heavily steeped in Sherlock-ian conceits.