Murder In Bloom is the third book in Rosie Sandler's gardening detective series, starring Steph and her wonderful dog, Mouse. This series is really coming into its own now, as Steph takes part in a garden design competition. Much of the early part of the book is taken up with setting the scene and the murder doesn't occur until much later in the story than I would have expected. The benefit of this, is that Steph and the reader really have time to get to know the characters before we start suspecting them all of lying. The other thing that struck me was that quite often, as the reader, we anticipate who the murder victim is going to be. In this instance, I had no idea who was going to get 'bumped off', so it was quite nice to be as suprised as Steph when the body eventually turned up.
The supporting cast are certainly an interesting bunch and in the highly charged competition environment it's easy to see how any one of them could (and in some cases, do) just snap. Each competitor has their own reason for needing the win, so Steph has to work out which of them is the most compelling and whether or not this is adequate motivation for murder.
This time, a smidgeon of romance is thrown in, just to add another element to Steph's life and it will be interesting to see how this develops in future books, given Steph's itinerant lifestyle. There are also occasional nods towards the main subplot of the series - the disappearance of Steph's erstwhile ex-husband, Ben. None of these add much that is new to this plot line, until the very end of the book, when an absolute whammy is delivered. (I will confess to saying out loud and admiring "well done, Rosie" when I reached this point, because as a cliffhanger, it was sublime.) It beautifully sets up the next book and I cannot wait to see how this particular plotline unfurls.
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