Should you be in the mood for a cozy mystery, let me recommend Murder in a Scottish Garden by Traci Hall, just out on May 25. Be prepared for the Scottish dialect throughout that takes you right into that Scottish garden and surrounding seaside community of Nairn.
In this second of the Scottish Shire Mysteries, Paislee Shaw owner of a specialty sweater shop tries to contact her elusive landlord Shawn Marcus, who has given her and her fellow shop owners an eviction notice just before cutting off contact with them. A golden opportunity arises for her to be a chaperone for her son’s class field trip to the mansion his mother Lady Leery owns. Surely, she will run into Shawn there and be able to speak to him. Instead, she hears a gunshot in the gardens and runs into a dead body falling out of the hedges. The body turns out to be Lady Leery’s nephew, Charles Thomson.
Paislee, a single mom trying to hold things together for her ten-year-old son Brody, her obstreperous grandfather, and black Scottish terrier, adds solving the mystery to “to-do list” along with her attempt to hold on to her shop. Suspects abound, including some of her friends. The dysfunctional Leery family dynamics and secrets add difficulty to her search for the killer. Then there’s the curt DI Mack Zeffer who alternately either wants her help or guards his status as the professional in the case. Paislee perseveres through all this and a lawsuit from the parents of the child she sheltered from the shooting before bringing us to the solution.