M. C. Beaton. The Potted Gardener. St. Martin’s, 1994.
As readers of this blog may know, we have enjoyed several Hamish Macbeth stories we have read. We thought we would try the other series by Mrs. Beaton, namely something about Agatha Raisin. Here goes.
As I started reading The Potted Gardener, I honestly did not care for Mrs. Raisin. She came across as on the rude or testy side. However, as I got accustomed to her, I began to see the humor. She used to live in London and now lives in the small Cotswold village of Carsely. There is a bit of the fish out of water sense, and although she is in her fifties, she has developed an schoolgirl crush on James, a neighbor who is a retired Army colonel.
Things get interesting as another urban transplant comes to town, Mary Fortune. She is an attractive divorcee—Agatha’s husband left years ago, but they never divorced. Ms. Fortune (misfortune?) is a skilled gardener. She becomes active in the local Garden Club along with James, the retired colonel.
Agatha, who really knows little of gardening, decides to join because it is clear that something is going on between Mary and James. To call her is jealous is putting it mildly. Agatha has a plan, though. It involves building a high fence in her back yard and then planting a bunch of fresh plants from a nursery the night before the big garden competition. There is a catch. A former co-worker has arranged all this, so she has to un-retire and go back to her Public Relations firm for six months. (Some of the funniest parts involve her PR hiatus.)
At some point it becomes clear that James and Mary are no longer seeing each other as much. We also learn from others in the town that there is a certain two-faced quality about Mary. She can be charming and friendly, and then come up with a zinger or veiled insult. Even the vicar’s wife admits Mary may be unkind.
And then shortly before the gardening open house in the village, someone begins sabotaging gardens. The roses in one garden are painted black overnight. Another night all the goldfish in a small garden pond are poisoned. And so it goes. And then Mary is murdered and hanged in her garden. The manner in which she is hanged is a bit bizarre. Let us say that that inspired the book’s title: potted literally, not inebriated.
By this time, Mary has managed to offend a lot of people in town. In other words, everyone seems to have a reason not to like her. Still all the slights seem relatively slight—not causes for murder. Agatha and James discover her body, and soon they begin to do their own amateur sleuthing with the help of local police officer Billy Chang. To illustrate Mary’s character, she has called Billy a chink: Not kind, not the first time he has been called that, rude, yes, but not the type of insult that would lead a normal citizen to murder.
We learn that Mary has a grown daughter who is a student at Oxford. She and her stand-offish boyfriend come to town. It seems Mary had not gotten along with her, either.
This is more of a cozy than the typical Hamish mystery. There is no criminal enterprise or hard-nosed crimebuster, but a retired, slightly nosy matron and her village friends. She is observant, and she knows people. That, along with sprinkles of Beaton humor, make this one a light but entertaining mystery.