OVERVIEW: The Winter Garden Mystery
Jun. 18th, 2013 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllThe Winter Garden Mystery: Carola Dunn Robinson 2009
It’s been a while, almost a year and a half, since I read the first Daisy Dalrymple book – click on the author’s tag for the review – and taken longer than I’d have liked to read this one.
The Hon. Daisy Dalrymple is off again, trading on her connections, to write another article about a stately home, but once again, she comes across a dead body. This can’t be the premise of the next book, surely! However nice Daisy is, why would aristocratic families invite someone who is likely to attract murders to their home?
As the incompetent local inspector harshly arrests the Welsh under-gardener who was seeing the dead maid, Daisy is sure that someone else is guilty and that the case needs to be investigated thoroughly. So, she contacts DCI Alec Fletcher who, despite himself, trusts her instincts (and is in no way inured to her charms) while continuing to search for clues herself. Daisy’s actions towards the end of the book nicely subvert all the male protectiveness that’s been trying to blanket her, without her being too strident, but then Daisy is someone to root for.
Although many of the criticisms and points that I made about the first Daisy Dalrymple mystery still apply, I thought the writing was a little more relaxed than in the first book. I like how Daisy and Alec’s relationship is developing, without contrived obstacles. There’s a half-acknowledged attraction, admiration and some reticence about the class difference and the fact that he's a widower with a child.
It’s been a while, almost a year and a half, since I read the first Daisy Dalrymple book – click on the author’s tag for the review – and taken longer than I’d have liked to read this one.
The Hon. Daisy Dalrymple is off again, trading on her connections, to write another article about a stately home, but once again, she comes across a dead body. This can’t be the premise of the next book, surely! However nice Daisy is, why would aristocratic families invite someone who is likely to attract murders to their home?
As the incompetent local inspector harshly arrests the Welsh under-gardener who was seeing the dead maid, Daisy is sure that someone else is guilty and that the case needs to be investigated thoroughly. So, she contacts DCI Alec Fletcher who, despite himself, trusts her instincts (and is in no way inured to her charms) while continuing to search for clues herself. Daisy’s actions towards the end of the book nicely subvert all the male protectiveness that’s been trying to blanket her, without her being too strident, but then Daisy is someone to root for.
Although many of the criticisms and points that I made about the first Daisy Dalrymple mystery still apply, I thought the writing was a little more relaxed than in the first book. I like how Daisy and Alec’s relationship is developing, without contrived obstacles. There’s a half-acknowledged attraction, admiration and some reticence about the class difference and the fact that he's a widower with a child.
