Margaret Finch is well aware people call her “Big Bird” behind her back.
She doesn’t care.
Margaret knows she’s big-boned and plain-featured, but she has more important matters to focus on. She loves her job at a botany lab at Blackstone College, which appears to be in northern California, and reveres her boss, Dr. Jonathan Deaver.
And now he’s dead. The police think Dr. Deaver expired in his office because of a congenital heart condition. But Margaret, who pays great attention to detail, is suspicious.
She thinks Dr. Deaver was poisoned—by a plant.
And she’s determined to find out who murdered him.
Margaret finds an unlikely ally in Joe, a custodian with a complex backstory. Although Margaret is socially awkward (and probably on the spectrum), her compassion helps young lab assistant Calvin to turn his life around (sort of) and he gets involved as well. Margaret even wins over a former adversary, Beth, the glamorous assistant to the dean of biological sciences.
It is unsettling for Margaret to discover that Dr. Deaver was not the paragon of virtue she imagined him to be. But she still wants justice done. Could the doctor’s wife, who may have contributed more to his success than he acknowledged, have killed him? And how about his temporary replacement, an unpleasant, ambitious man who has none of Dr. Deaver’s brilliance?
As Margaret puts her job on the line and takes risks she never thought herself capable of, she continues her carefully structured life in a quaint remote cabin left to her by a great-aunt. Margaret drives a 20-year-old Toyota truck, reads mysteries, gardens and wears a different flora- or fauna-themed shirt every day. A stray cat shows up on her doorstep and she surprises herself by taking it in.
And eventually, with a little help from her new friends, she solves the case.
I thoroughly enjoyed this warm and delightful book. Margaret is a wonderful character and the details of her life are charming. I hope she’ll be back for another gentle, fun sleuthing adventure.
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