Book Review: Pretty Poison

Author: Joyce & Jim Lavene
Title: Pretty Poison (A Peggy Lee Garden Mystery)
Publisher: Berkley
Publish Date: May 3, 2005
Buy: Amazon

Book Blurb:It's another busy fall day for Peggy. A quick café lecture on African violets is followed by a minor bike accident involving a good-looking Saturn driver. Upon returning to her shop, Peggy discovers one of the wealthiest men in town--and one of the biggest philanderers--sprawled face down across one of her seasonal displays, apparently beaten to death with a garden shovel.

When the cops pin the murder on a local homeless man, Peggy must rake through evidence and dig up secrets to root out the real killer.

Review: If this book is any indication of what the rest of this series will be like, I'm in. Peggy Lee is a 52 year old widow, who runs a garden shop. She has a "real" life. She has a son on the force, like her late husband, who she is having issues with. Paul is a jerk. She met a man, Steve, who is 7 years younger than her, who she is starting to have some romantic feelings for, oh and then there's the Great Dane that has moved in. All that and a murder in her shop and a friend asking her about a certain type of poison.

Now you would think things would move at a faster pace in the story, considering that there is a lot happening, but it doesn't. This could bother some readers, but not me. The pacing felt natural to me. I liked that there was more than one mystery involved in this story and that they were tied together

The big mystery aside from who killed Mark Warner in her shop, is who is Nightflyer, the computer chess player that is likely stalking Peggy. This is one of the reasons I will keep reading the series. I want to know who this person is.

Like all cozies are heroine is super spunky and a whole lot hard headed. In the case of Nightflyer, if there was someone who was stalking you, wouldn't you report it to the authorities? Especially since this person knows a lot about you and the murders?

But it wouldn't be a cozy mystery if the characters didn't act that way!

I liked Peggy Lee. She is loyal, loving and flawed, just like any human and the secondary characters are great as well, especially Steve, the vet/love interest. It will be interesting to see how their relationship develops in the series and how her son deals with it.

Rating:  5 flowers