Here's a book that reminds me of the 1963 film, Charade. It has lavish European settings. The two lead characters could easily be envisioned as Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. No one is quite who they seem. And the novel's great secret, the smuggling of… well, that would be telling.
Sarah Deane wasn't terribly excited when her Aunt Julia asked her to accompany her on the Midcoast Garden Club European tour. Neither women were particularly serious gardeners. But it was a hard offer to refuse. The tickets and all accommodations had already been paid for. It was a free ride as a result of an apparent accident when Garden Club president, Lillian Garth had to give up her travel plans after falling - or being pushed - down the stairs to her root cellar.
Before departing from the States, botany professor Ellen Trevino agrees to step in as replacement leader. But when the tourists arrive in England, there is no sign of Professor Trevino. Sarah suspects foul play, and a phone call home to her husband turns up that Trevino's car was found abandoned.
The group spends its first week in the Cotswolds, exploring the gardens of Gloucestershire. Bit by bit, Sarah begins to suspect that the tour group isn't everything it appears to be. Most of the group members, it turns out, have little knowledge or interest in gardening.
Sarah Deane is a delightful character. Her spry and genial spunkiness contrasts her husband's old-fashioned, debonair manner. She tells it like it is, and doesn't blush when she uses verbiage that one doesn't typically find in 'cosy' mysteries.
The character who stole the show was the frizzy-haired, free-spirited fourteen-year-old Amy Lermatov. Dragged along on the tour by her mother, Amy spends much of her time trying to determine which men are wearing hairpieces, and rolling her eyes at the inanities of grownups. Her wardrobe consists of faded jeans and a T-shirt bearing the logo of a rock band named - appropriately enough - The Decomposers.
Amy wants to be a novelist when she grows up, and spends much of her time on the tour dreaming up the plot for a mystery novel based on their experiences and photographing possible settings. Thus she falls into a strange and amusing alliance with Sarah and her Aunt Julia. Three generations of female sleuths.
This is the sort of thing I like about Borthwick's writing: her characters, dialogue, and descriptions are all written in an easy, cute manner - but there's a spicy undercurrent that creeps up when you least suspect it, delighting the palate like a fine foreign curry.
