There is a fair amount of garden-themed mystery fiction. Some of the books are well written; the vast majority are not. I have just finished The Lost Gardens by Anthony Eglin, a book that combines good writing, a strong sense of place, a knowledge of horticulture and an appealing sleuth. Eglin is no P.D. James or Louise Penny, but his horticultural whodunit is a compelling read.
Lawrence Kingston, Eglin’s English sleuth, is a retired botany professor who loves wine, interesting women and his sporty Triumph TR4. The lost gardens of the title are at Wickersham Priory, a long-neglected estate recently inherited by a young American woman. The American, Jamie Gibson, has also inherited a sizable fortune, part of which she uses to hire Kingston to lead the restoration effort that will return the Wickersham gardens to their former splendor. The restoration begins with a surprise, which, of course, begets other surprises and leads to several murders. Kingston pursues sleuthing and restoration simultaneously.
The descriptions of the restoration made me want to go out and find my own lost garden and rescue it from bramble-driven decay. I pined for Wickersham’s walled kitchen garden; the rolled, terraced lawns and–especially–the reconstituted rose garden. I could see them all in my mind’s eye and feel that enormous inheritance jingling in my pockets. Eglin mentions the real-life restoration of the “lost” gardens of Heligan in Cornwall in both the text and the acknowledgements. I have made a note to myself to re-read Tim Smit’s The Lost Gardens of Heligan sometime soon to wallow once again in that inspiring act of garden resurrection.
As is often the case with murder mysteries, the author and his sleuth seem to have more than a little in common. Both are handsome, garden-loving middle-aged men, born in England. Eglin migrated to the California wine country, while Lawrence Kingston stayed home in Great Britain. In The Lost Gardens, Eglin tips his hat to his American domicile by making his heiress a California-born wine maker.
Tomorrow it is supposed to rain, making garden work problematic. I am not disappointed. If the deluge comes, it will give me a chance to read more of Anthony Eglin’s English Garden mysteries.
For more information on Anthony Eglin and his mysteries, go to http://anthonyeglin.com. To find out more about Heligan, go to http://www.heligan.com.