MURDER IN THE SCENTED MAZE: A Village Fête Cat Cozy Mystery
About MURDER IN THE SCENTED MAZE: A Village Fête Cat Cozy Mystery
Georgie Shaw thought she was finally getting the hang of village life. The nursery is steadier, her hands are less hopeless with plants, and Celandine Cottage is starting to feel like hers, even if Percy the ginger tomcat still acts like the senior partner. Then festival season arrives, and with it, another body.
The annual village fête is the kind of wholesome chaos Woldmere prides itself on: bunting, baking, charity stalls, and a packed green full of locals who know everyone’s business. Georgie has been hired to create a “scented maze” attraction, a winding herb-and-flower walkway designed to draw crowds and boost donations. It should be a perfect piece of publicity for her struggling nursery.
Instead, the fête ends with murder inside the maze. The death is shocking, but what follows is worse: instant certainty. Accusations fly, social media picks a villain, and the village splits into teams before DI Priya Desai can finish her first round of interviews.
Georgie recognises the pattern. A neat story is rarely the true one. While Priya demands evidence and procedure, Georgie digs into the mess beneath the bunting: a victim with private enemies, missing paperwork tied to the fundraiser, and a suspicious “wellness partnership” that keeps appearing at local events with too much money and too many smiling representatives.
Meanwhile, Georgie is also dealing with real-world pressure. Someone vandalises Celandine Cottage. Orders flood in and then vanish.
A small, targeted intrusion suggests the killer is not just trying to escape justice, but trying to retrieve something. Percy, unhelpfully confident, keeps turning up where Georgie least wants attention and most needs it, forcing her to notice what has changed and what has been moved. As Georgie maps timelines, tests alibis, and sorts secrets from lies, she discovers the fête was more than a village tradition.
It was a stage. And whoever planned the murder expected the crowd to do the rest. Murder in the Scented Maze is the third book in The Celandine Cottage Garden Mysteries, a clean, witty British cozy mystery series packed with village charm, gardening life, a cat with opinions, and a fair-play whodunnit with a satisfying solution.
British English spelling and usage. Clean read: no graphic violence, no explicit sex, no strong language.