Death in the Physic Garden

by Karen Lowe

When Fern escapes her abusive boyfriend and her life in London, to set up her garden design business, Star Gardens, in the remote South Shropshire hills, she believes she has found peace and safety at last. But she discovers the body of her first client, wealthy herbalist Joshua Hamble, dead in his physic garden and soon becomes entangled in a deadly family feud. As DI Drummond warns her, 'gardening can be a dangerous business'.

210 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Swansea born, where my mum's family live, we moved to Shropshire, my father's home county, when I was five. I studied English, French & German for a BA, University of London, and worked as a secretary in the West End until moving back to Shropshire to bring up a family. I have written for children, with stories broadcast on BBC TV's Playschool, and published three collections of crossword books before turning to crime. I have now published two novels, Death in the Physic Garden and Death in the Winter Garden, which feature my garden designer heroine, Fern Green, and are set in Shropshire and the Welsh borders. As well as my passion for gardening, I love crafts of all sorts, and I create templates for use with the Craft Robo and Cameo electronic cutters. Having rediscovered patchwork and quilting, I have a new series of cozy crime fiction, The Quilt Detective. Patchwork of Poison is the first in the series, with Motif for Murder due for publication shortly.

Reviews

[Anne Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a quite interesting cosy crime thriller involving new garden designer Fern (love that name!) and the unexpected murder of her first client. The plot line is gripping enough but it does get very confusing, especially towards the end when a lot of things happen very quickly indeed. The ending could do with a bit more teasing out in fact, in my view.

Fern is a strong character however and I enjoyed the juxtaposition between her love of gardening and the really quite frightening things going on around her. The descriptions of the plants are also truly lovely, and I learnt a lot about them as well, which was nice.

However, some of the writing itself is rather clumsy - for instance there are scenes with a lot of point of view changes between Fern and Ross Drummond, the policeman investigating the murder. This only serves to push the reader out of the story, as we're not quite sure who we should be rooting (ha!) for.

Which brings me to Ross. Sorry, as I know he's supposed to be one of those straightforward and strong-minded "salt of the earth"-type policemen, but I really disliked him, and was utterly unconvinced about his supposedly growing attraction to Fern, and her positive response. He's really not suited for her at all, and some of his actions were just crass. Fern - bless her - can do a lot better than this!

So a pleasant read, but I could have done without the romance.

[Pauline Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a straightforward murder mystery with a large dose of romance and a good sprinkling of horticulture (sort of like 'Rosemary and Thyme' with sex). It's not ambitious, but it achieves its objectives with undeniable charm.

The plot is easy enough to follow, with some nice twists and turns right to the end, and the characters and their motives are believable. The cottage garden effects are laid on with a trowel (lots of heavy scents of honeysuckle and roses, birds chirruping and bees humming, you know the sort of thing), it's all rather nicely done and never feels over the top.. There are even a few gardening tips mixed in there.

All in all, a very enjoyable summer read. I would put it between 3 and 4 stars, but it left me in a pleasantly mellow mood, so I'll round it up to 4.

[Ginney Etherton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good who-dunnit with an extra bonus for gardeners. That could put it into a "niche book" category that might put some potential readers off. I hope not, because there is enough there even for sorry gardeners such as myself. Lowe has a knack for evoking feelings from the landscape, as if the plants were actual characters with their own personalities. The writing is smooth and evenly-paced. I was glad I read it on my Kindle, because there were some odd words that required a handy dictionary. Building my British vocabulary is always appreciated.

[Snoozie Suzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I completely agree with the current average rating for this book of 3.5 stars. I enjoyed the whole gardening theme, but as a whole the book wasn't a real grabber for me. Saying that, a nice easy read in terms of a murder mystery. Possibly because it's written not from the police point of view.

I am going to read the second book, but not immediately, but it probably won't be tooling before I do read it

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic rural english murder mystery, set in Shropshire, with added gardening tips.