Rooted in Deceit by Wendy Tyson is the fourth book in the “Greenhouse” mystery series. Publisher: Henery Press, September 2018.
It’s summertime in Winsome. Washington Acres is abloom, Megan is preparing for the grand opening of their wood-fired pizza farm, and things with Megan’s beau, handsome Dr. Finn, are getting as hot as the August temperatures.
But when Megan’s ne’er-do-well father arrives in Pennsylvania with his high-maintenance Italian wife, Sylvia, and announces they’re staying at the new yoga retreat center a town away, a sweet occasion sours.
Eager to secure pieces for her Milan boutique, Sylvia finagles a meeting with up-and-coming artist Thana Moore, whose work is showing at the retreat center. After their explosive encounter, Thana is murdered and Sylvia becomes the prime suspect.
Only Sylvia isn’t the only one with ties to the artist—once upon a time, Thana Moore had been Megan’s best friend.
As Megan delves into Thana’s past, piecing together the years since their falling out, she realizes that something sinister is afoot in Bucks County. Unless Megan can find the killer, this idyllic summer will turn nightmarish. Innocent people may be imprisoned—and even more could die.
Visitors galore descend on Megan, first her father and his new wife and then two friends from her childhood and when they are in the same locale, one is dead and the other the prime suspect. When it also appears that a close friend is a prime suspect, Megan starts looking for a person with a stronger motive and when all was said and done, what she finds is not what she expected.
This was a multi-plot tome immediately grabbed my attention as I had to know what happens next. With her father in town, her mother close-by and her co-worker not himself, it’s up to Megan to put the pieces together and bring a murderer to justice. The author knows how to tell a story with great aplomb giving this reader enough bite to have me dwelling in all that Megan is experiencing from the arrival of her father and his wife to seeing an old friend to seeing a dream come alive to missing a friend to interrogating suspects and to seeking help from an unexpected source. All this build-up leads to the apprehension of the killer and the author did a great job in setting the stage to bring it all to fruition. And Megan’s father did a good thing. All in all, this was a terrific read in a delightfully entertaining series.
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