Customer Reviews

A Ragged Plot

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The heroine of this novel, Margaret Binton, is billed as an American Miss Marple, and the book does not disappoint. Margaret notices an empty lot in Manhattan being turned into a garden, and approaches Luiz, the man in charge of the work. She soon joins the elderly Puerto Rican man and his ragtag band of teenagers in planting the inner-city garden, and makes friends with Luiz as well. When Luiz is murdered, Margaret digs in an area of the garden he seemed concerned about, and finds a box of stolen diamonds. Because she's got friends in the police department, she convinces them to rebury the diamonds and stake out the garden to find Luiz's killer. While the cops keep an eye on things, Margaret herself takes up the investigation, focusing on the teenage gardeners until she narrows it down to the killer.

Margaret Binton is a lot like Miss Marple, an indomitable elderly widow in good spirits who's liked by everyone around her. She goes about doing whatever she wants with no fuss...and no interference. The scene where she talks a friend into renting her a car because she "hasn't bothered to renew her license for a few years" and then admits she hasn't driven since 1948 is priceless. In addition to her demeanor, Margaret Binton also has a sharp mind, narrowing in on clues that others miss to find an answer to a mystery that seems obvious to her, while everyone else is stumped. An odd contrast to this upstanding, likeable old lady are the foul-mouthed cops who are exasperated by her at times, yet trust her implicitly.

A fun little novel with a plucky heroine, I recommend this book for anyone who likes a good, lighthearted whodunit.