THE ORCHIDS LADY

A widowed brain surgeon investigates a murder in Smallwood’s mystery novel, a prequel to her detective series.

Santa Christina is an idyllic California town shaded by the lemonadeberry–covered slopes of Mount Reposo. It’s a quiet place, where the most fearsome predator is the occasional coyote. Dr. Ogy Bradley is shocked when he returns from a conference to discover that his neighbor and close friend, noted hillside gardener Babby Blenheim, has been killed in a mudslide. (It appears the sprinklers in her orchid garden malfunctioned.) Ogy, a widowed brain surgeon, can’t believe that Babby’s death was an accident. The person tasked with investigating the death is Ogy’s friend from the diving club, Detective Tor Abelove of the Santa Christina Police Department. Tor has always been a surfer first and a cop second, but he’s still a pretty good detective. He figures out that Babby was bludgeoned to death prior to the mudslide, but there’s no clear motive and no obvious suspects. Who would benefit from the orchid lady’s death? A local burglar? Her adopted niece and nephew, who would inherit her money? A rival gardener? A local politician with an acrimonious history? As Ogy and Tor look into the case, they quickly discover the ground beneath their feet is just as unstable as Babby’s hillside orchid field. Smallwood is a prose stylist, and her serpentine, often surprising sentences give the novel its playful, puzzling atmosphere: “Luis Paredes’ tactic of protecting his best second-hand shirt by sitting out a paintball war inside a cardboard carton had two major consequences—the attempted murder of his brother, and the apprehension of a burglar who for months had eluded police.” She hides the ball by nearly overwhelming readers with character detail and backstory, but the maximalism is part of the fun. New readers will be glad to know that previous Cop & Doc mysteries are waiting to be read.

A charming and immersive mystery with a lot of personality.