Murder in a Scottish Garden (A Scottish Shire Mystery)

Paislee Ann Shaw’s landlord, Shawn Marcus, is trying to evict her from her knitting shop in the center of town. She hopes to contact him while she’s chaperoning her son’s class on a field trip to Shawn’s estate. But before she can do that, a man is shot dead on the grounds. Paislee is determined to find out if Shawn was involved or if he was the intended victim.

Murder in a Scottish Garden has what you would expect from a cozy mystery: a lovely setting, community spirit, a puzzle to solve, and colorful characters to boot. The story moves at a good pace, making it engaging and interesting. The dialogue, however, leaves a lot to be desired. There was far too much of an attempt to make all of the characters sound more Scottish than the Scots themselves. To me, this took away from the story itself, making it sound a bit silly. On the other hand, I like that there were quite a few suspects with varying motives, and it wasn’t clear which way the story was headed until the end. Overall, I had mixed feelings about this one.