The Botanist's Assistant
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A murder in the science lab shatters a woman’s quiet and ordered life when she decides she must solve the crime herself in this entertaining and uplifting mystery.
Plenty of people consider Margaret Finch odd. Six-feet-tall and big-boned, she lives alone in a small cabin in the woods, drives a 20-year-old truck, and schedules her life so precisely you can tell the time and day of the week by the chore she is doing and what she is wearing. But the same attributes that cause her to be labeled eccentric—an obsessive attention to detail and the ability to organize almost anything—make her invaluable in her job as Research Assistant II to a talented and charismatic botanist.
It's those very same qualities, however, that also turn Margaret into a target after a surprising death shakes the small university where she works. Even as authorities claim the death appears to be from natural causes, Margaret fears it might be something more: a murder born of jealousy and dark secrets. With the aid of a newly hired and enigmatic night custodian, Margaret finds herself thrust into the role of detective, forcing her to consider that she may not be able to find the killer before the killer finds her.
With a cast of quirky and likeable characters that one won’t soon forget, The Botanist’s Assistant is a delightful story of perseverance and the power in all of us to survive.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An introverted scientist investigates the death of her boss in this gentle whodunit from Townsend (The Beautiful and the Wild). Research assistant Margaret Finch idolizes her boss, Dr. Jonathan Deaver, who leads their lab in developing a plant-based cure for cancer. She's also a stickler for details, so when Deaver is found dead in his office, irregularities in the scene make Margaret unwilling to accept the official explanation that his heart condition caught up with him. Her rigid ethics make her even more unwilling to support university administrators who want to keep a lucrative grant by removing Deaver's name from his research and crediting his colleagues instead. Though the social aspects of sleuthing are difficult for her, Margaret enlists the support of an ex-journalist currently working as the lab's janitor to help her piece together the clues. Townsend's plotting is straightforward, the novel's supporting characters play close to trope, and the climactic reveal lacks surprise. Still, Margaret is an endearing enough heroine that readers will be gratified to see her hard work vindicated. Though familiar, this is sweet enough to charm cozy fans.
