The Cipher Garden

 The Cipher Garden (2005) by Martin Edwards

Warren Howe was a ladies man as well as being a difficult man to get along with. One afternoon he was surprised by a person in a hood while working in a garden in Old Sawrey--a village in England's Lake District. But at the end of the day, the police are unable to pin the murder on anyone. There are plenty of suspects from jilted lovers to the wife he was cheating on to the men in the lives of the women he seduced. Even his own son hated him. The day of the murder was a miserable, rainy afternoon and the killer left no forensic evidence behind. So, the case was abandoned.

Then years later, an anonymous tip comes in to the Cold Case Review Team and DCI Hannah Scarlett gets interested. The anonymous tipster points the finger of guilt at Warren's wife Tina even though she had an alibi. 

Tina Howe was jealous of her husband Warren, so she murdered him.

That isn't the last of the anonymous letters. Various members of the Howe family and their friends are all favored with poison pen missives. When Scarlett starts investigating, she realizes that her sergeant, Nick Lowther, seems disturbed by her determination to open up this particular cold case. He was part of the investigation the first time around, did he discover something at the time and not share it with the team? 

Meanwhile, Daniel Kind, celebrated historian who considers the work of the historian to be akin to that of the detective, is looking into a mystery of his own. He has been working on the garden at his newly-acquired cottage--a garden that seems at first to be a random mess of plants. But he soon learns that the garden has a history and is referred to by local folk as the "Cipher Garden." What is the secret of the random planting? And what happened to the original owners of the cottage? His mystery leads him to the cold case investigation when he hires Peter Flint to help him renovate the garden. Flint was Warren Howe's business partner at the time of the murder--and is now involved with Howe's widow. Was he involved with her while Howe was still alive? And is there a motive for murder in that? By the time Scarlett and Kind follow their respective trails they will find a shocking conclusion...one that changes a number of the suspects' lives forever.

As I mentioned in my review of the first book in the series (The Coffin Trail), I'm not a huge fan of protagonists with baggage. We all know that Hannah and Daniel's respective relationships are not the most solid. We know where things are heading eventually. And, while I know that real life is messy, I don't really need my escapist mystery literature to measure up to real life. How much cleaner if we could skip the angst and doubts and the mess of getting out of relationships that aren't working and just have Hannah and Daniel meet up (single) in the debut novel and work their way towards a relationship of their own. Then we could all just focus on the main point of a mystery novel--the mystery, the clues, the suspects, and looking for a solution. This would be my main complaint about more modern mysteries, so many "mystery" authors bury their plot so far beneath the drama and angst in their detective's life that it's difficult to care about the actual mystery. 

Sorry, Martin, I didn't mean to get on my soapbox.

Fortunately, Martin Edwards, doesn't bury his plot. And he writes a darn good mystery. So I can more easily forgive the baggage that Hannah and Daniel are dragging about. It also helps that Martin completely pulled the wool over my eyes this time. In the first novel, I spotted the culprit thought I didn't get the motive right. This time I was totally at sea. And sometimes that's a very good place to be. I don't mind being fooled when it's done by an expert and Martin is certainly that. ★★★ and 3/4 (getting closer to a full four-star mystery!)

First line (Prologue): "I thought you were dead."

First line (1st Chapter): Welcome to Paradise.

Last line: This time she left it longer before easing her hand away from his.

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Deaths = 7 ( two stabbed; two fell from height; two poisoned; one auto accident)