annieb123's Review of Back to the Garden

by Laurie R King

A fifty-year-old cold case involving California royalty comes back to life—with potentially fatal consequences—in this gripping standalone novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series.

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: PopSugar

A magnificent house, vast formal gardens, a golden family that shaped California, and a colorful past filled with now-famous artists: the Gardener Estate was a twentieth-century Eden.

And now, just as the Estate is preparing to move into a new future, restoration work on some of its art digs up a grim relic of the home’s past: a human skull, hidden away for decades.

Inspector Raquel Laing has her work cut out for her. Fifty years ago, the Estate’s young heir, Rob Gardener, turned his palatial home into a counterculture commune of peace, love, and equality. But that was also a time when serial killers preyed on innocents—monsters like The Highwayman, whose case has just surged back into the public eye.

Could the skull belong to one of his victims?

To Raquel—a woman who knows all about colorful pasts—the bones clearly seem linked to The Highwayman. But as she dives into the Estate’s archives to look for signs of his presence, what she unearths begins to take on a dark reality all of its own.

Everything she finds keeps bringing her back to Rob Gardener himself. While he might be a gray-haired recluse now, back then he was a troubled young Vietnam vet whose girlfriend vanished after a midsummer festival at the Estate.

But a lot of people seem to have disappeared from the Gardener Estate that summer when the commune mysteriously fell apart: a young woman, her child, and Rob’s brother, Fort.

The pressure is on, and Raquel needs to solve this case—before The Highwayman slips away, or another Gardener vanishes.

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

Back to the Garden is an atmospheric and brilliantly written standalone mystery thriller by Laurie R. King. Released 6th Sept 2022 by Penguin Random House on their Bantam imprint, it's 336 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

Fans of the author already know that she's prolific, competent (often shading into sublime), and genuinely talented with setting and characterization. There are times during reading when the only appropriate response is to close the book, look into the middle distance, and ponder what one has just read. This book is more prosaic in subject and character than her well known Holmes & Russell books, but no less engaging and entertaining.

From the prologue chapter to the gradual buildup of layers (and intervening years) of a resurrected cold case investigation, through to the satisfying denouement and resolution, the author does a masterful job with the writing. Rough(ish) language, but average for a procedural mystery. Some graphic violence (bludgeoning deaths, sexual murders, serial killer, etc), but again, not used egregiously.

Four solid stars. Hope the author revisits the characters in future.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Reading updates

28 March, 2023: Started reading

28 March, 2023: Finished reading

28 March, 2023: Reviewed