Lake Garda, Italy, 1925

Uncle Albert, in relentless pursuit of his hobby, is off to a secluded island on Lake Garda, Italy. Guided by ancestral duty, Lady Caroline, his reluctant secretary, follows in his wake. An exclusive party has gathered to celebrate the coming out of the Queen of the Night with a midnight soiree.

But as the guests prepare to witness the exotic plant’s once-a-year bloom, Uncle Albert is discovered in the villa’s conservatory with a dead body. Worse yet, with the Queen of the Night completely destroyed.

While Lady Caroline is determined to clear her aging relation’s good name, Uncle Albert seems to dig himself further into trouble. When a second body turns up in the manicured gardens, and Uncle Albert again is the most likely culprit, Lady Caroline decides it’s time to put her scavenger hunt skills–the same ones that got her into this “secretary” mess in the first place–to good use and follow the clues to the real killer.

With a closed circle of upper-crust suspects, an elegant historic location, and a puzzling murder mystery without the gore, it’s a golden age country house whodunnit transplanted to Italy.

Death in the Garden is Book 2 of the Lady Caroline Murder Mysteries series. In the glamorous world of 1920s Europe, money and privilege rub shoulders, and greed, envy, and murder are never far behind. Follow Lady Caroline, intelligent and witty, with a fondness for breaking rules, on a fun romp through the golden age of murder mysteries. Each book contains the requisite eccentric characters, fun historical tidbits, and puzzling murders with no gore or gloom.

Isabella Bassett