There’s something about working in the garden that some people find very restorative. Even people who don’t do a lot of gardening themselves often enjoy gardens. It’s easy to see why. Whether a garden has flowers or vegetables, it’s a place of growth and beauty. Of course, gardens are a lot of work, too. There’s weeding, thinning plants, watering, raking, and a lot of other things, too, and that’s to say nothing of keeping after garden pests. But a lot of people believe that the fresh produce and herbs are worth the effort. So is the effect of gorgeous flowers. The only problem with gardens, at least in crime fiction, is that they can be dangerous. No, really. Garden plots can be good places to hide a body (I’ve written about that myself). And you never know what else can happen in a garden. Here are just a few examples to show you what I mean.
Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot is not one you’d think of as a gardener, but in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, he takes a home in the village of Kings Abbot, where he’s planning to retire and grow vegetable marrows. Things don’t go smoothly for him, though, and he gets frustrated with the whole project. He even hurls one of the plants into the garden next door and happens to hit the man who lives there with it. After profuse apologies, Poirot and the other man, Dr. John Sheppard, introduce themselves and before long, they get involved in investigating the stabbing death of retired business tycoon Roger Ackroyd. And all because Poirot was out in his garden…
In one plot thread of D.S. Nelson’s One For the Rooks, retired milliner Blake Heatherington is getting ready for a local harvest festival in the village of Tuesbury. He loves working on his allotment, and he is proud of his garden. One day, Heatherington is shocked to find the body of Peter Kürbis in his pumpkin patch, killed, or so it seems, by one of Heatherington’s own prize pumpkins. Heatherington knows he’s not guilty, but he wants to clear his name. The police are just looking into this murder when there’s another. There are other strange occurrences in the village, too, and Heatherington will have to find out who’s behind it all if he’s going to clear his name.
In The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley introduces eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, who lives in the 1950s English village of Bishops Lacey. One evening, she happens to overhear an argument between her father and an unknown visitor. She’s sent upstairs, but she knows what she heard. The next morning, she discovers the visitor’s body in the family’s cucumber patch. It’s not long before her father is accused and then arrested for the murder, but Flavia is certain he’s not guilty. She’s determined to find out the truth, so she starts asking questions and looking for evidence. And it turns out this crime has its roots in the past.
In Cath Staincliffe’s Blue Murder, Manchester teacher Matthew Tulley is murdered one day while he’s working on his allotment. The police are called in, and newly-promoted Detective Chief Inspector Janine Lewis begins the investigation. One possibility is that a low-life named Dean Hendrix is responsible. He was seen on the allotment, so he had the opportunity. It’s hard to see what connections he’d have had with Tulley, but it’s possible. Tulley was a teacher, so it’s just as possible that he’d had an argument with a student that got out of hand. His colleagues, too, need to be considered. So does his wife Lesley, They seemed to be a happy couple, but it’s hard to know what goes on within a marriage. Lewis is going to have her hands full finding out the truth.
And then there’s Harini Nagendra’s The Bangalore Detectives Club, which takes place in 1921 Bangalore. Kaveri Murtha and her husband Ramu have recently moved to the area and are beginning their life together as newlyweds. One night, they are invited to the Century Club, which is one of the few clubs in the city not exclusively for the British. During the event, Kaveri decides to step out into the club’s gardens for some fresh air. While she’s there, she witnesses an argument between a man and a beautiful woman. About a half-hour later, the man, a local pimp named Ponnuswamy, is found murdered. The woman is nowhere to be seen. The police are called in and begin an investigation. Since Kaveri is a witness, she tells the police what she knows. She gets further drawn into the case when her regular milkman, who was at the event, goes missing. She wants to find him since, among other things, his family needs his income. Then, there’s an attack on someone else. Now, Kaveri searches for the links between the murder, the attack, and her milkman’s disappearance. And, without spoiling the story, I can say that gardening plays a role in how Kaveri finds answers.
Whether you’re gathering in the last of autumn’s harvest, or watching plants ripen as spring turns to summer, a garden can be a relaxing, healthy interest. But do be careful. You never know what might be dug up…
*NOTE: The title of this post is When I’m Sixty-Four.
Crime Writer Margot Kinberg 
nice share
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Thanks very much
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Some great examples, Margot. Gardens are not as benign as they might appear, are they??
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Thank you, KBR. And you’re right; gardens only look peaceful on the surface. Look more closely and you never know what you’ll find…
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I’ve read several of these and really enjoyed them although I gave up on the Flavia de Luce series after 5 or 6 books as it wasn’t as good somehow. I remember one excellent short story I read based at an English village flower show where competition was rife. It was very funny but I can’t rememer now whether the author was Gladys Mitchell of Margery Allingham… or neither. I’ve just found it on my blog, it was called A Proper Mystery by Margery Allingham and was included in one of the BLCC collections, Serpents in Eden, an anthology of countryside crime stories, dited of course by Martin Edwards. The latest from them is Lessons in Crime, an academic/school collection which I have, of course, snapped up.
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It’s interesting, Cath, how sometimes, we do give up on a series after a time. Sometimes we change, sometimes the series change, and sometimes something else happens. I’ve had the same experience with some series. Thanks for sharing A Proper Mystery; it sounds like a good story, and Allingham did do some solid Campion novels. The BLCC have put out some very fine anthologies, haven’t they? And Martin Edwards is such an excellent editor that I know I’m in safe hands when I read one of those collections.
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I don’t enjoy gardening as much as I used to, too many aches and pains. But I love any book with a gardening theme, or featuring places with lovely gardens.
I had forgotten about Poirot gardening and growing marrows when he retires, in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. I enjoyed that (the book and Poirot trying to garden).
I had the same experience Cath had with the Flavia de Luce series. I loved the setting especially in that series, but after the first few stories, they appealed to me less.
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I love gardens, too, Tracy, whether they’re real or fictional. There’s just something about them. I wish I had a really green thumb, but I don’t.
As for The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, I like his frustration with trying to grow vegetable marrows. There’s something very human about it, if that makes sense.
It’s interesting that you and Cath had a similar experience with the Flavia de Luce series. I suppose some series are like that; they lose their appeal over time for one reason or another.
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More from Agatha Christie – in the short story The Herb of Death there are foxglove leaves mistaken (?) for sage leaves, cooked in the stuffing and bad for heart patients. When I visited Christie’s house at Greenway, I was so excited to find foxglove plants in the garden! (I didn’t pick any to cook with…)
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Oh, thank you for the reminder of Greenway! That’s one of my truly fond memories of being in the UK. And it’s only right that there should be foxglove in that garden. Somehow it…fits. Thanks also for the mention of The Herb of Death. That’s a great example of exactly what I had in mind with this post.
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I thought of Flavia as I started the post. Thankfully there are not many bodies in gardens. My second thought was of Nero Wolfe. Does spending time every day tending to orchids constitute gardening? I say yes! (How more irascible he would be if the orchids did not soothe his soul.)
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It’s true, Bill, it is a good thing there aren’t many bodies in gardens. I liked Flavia’s reaction to finding one, though – it was well done, I thought. And your comment about Nero Wolfe made me remember a novella, The Affair of the Twisted Scarf, in which a garden/orchid club is meeting at Nero’s brownstone and he’s showing off his orchids. Then, one of the guests is murdered…
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The Bangalore Detectives club is supposed to be a very well researched book. It portrays life in Bangalore under the British rule very well, according to a friend of mine. Today, Bangalore, a city I’ve lived in for more than 30 years is different. It’s the IT capital of India, and though the Century club still stands, Gen Z prefers a quaint bar or a themed one for their drinking needs and other smaller clubs for their fitness and other needs. You come to Bangalore and you’ll find posh cars on one side of the street and beggars without houses on the other. There’s a big gap between the rich and the poor here. As far as gardening is concerned, we had a big garden growing up. My mom gardened and then she hired a gardener. I would play pranks on him by placing a rubber snake near him. I feel bad now though. I never took to gardening and after reading your post I think I’ll think twice before starting! A great, unique post. I think you should write a crime story with a garden setting. You’ll kill it.
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Thank you, OP. Perhaps I will write a story like that. And I’m glad you enjoyed The Bangalore Detective Club. It really is an excellent and well researched story, in my opinion. It’s a well-told story too. And thanks for the insights about Bangalore. As a long-time resident, you really have a fascinating and well-informed perspective on the place.
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