The Christmas Rose

The prettiest village in the county is named after a poison — and no one in Little Hemlock has ever thought that strange. But then, they have never had reason to.

On the hardest frost in a decade, the whole village climbs the hill to Hemlock Manor for the Quennells' Christmas party, where the wassail steams and the fires roar against the cold. It is there, among the holly and the candlelight, that Judith Netherwood — retired schoolmistress, secretary of the History Society, and self-appointed keeper of every secret in three parishes — sets down her spiced cordial and quietly dies. A weak heart, everyone agrees. The cold and the excitement. A sad but unremarkable end to a festive evening.

Dilys Ashcroft is not everyone.

Forty years a botanist, a widow learning to live in the cold half of the bed, Dilys knows what the others do not: the white petals floating in the dead woman's cup belong to the Christmas rose, loveliest bloom of midwinter — and one that stops the heart. Someone has committed murder in a room full of neighbours, and hidden it inside the season itself.

But Judith had lately been going through the old parish drawers, promising to surprise a good many people. Truth, she liked to say, is a duty, whatever it costs. Now Dilys must discover what Judith found — and reckon with an old crime that will not stay buried beneath the snow.

To catch a poisoner the whole village adores, she must read a garden under frost, listen to what a dead woman knew, and accept unlikely help from the rudest, loneliest man in Little Hemlock: a retired pathologist who eats alone and has stopped pretending otherwise.

A cosy village mystery with real teeth and a tender heart, The Christmas Rose is for readers who love Golden Age puzzles, wintry English settings, and detectives who notice what everyone else steps over.

Some flowers were never meant for any cup.