Pru receives an email from an old Texas colleague asking her to be the liaison for a garden buildup at the Chelsea Flower Show, the world's most prestigious garden event. The Austin Rock Garden Society (ARGS) has a spot in this year's London show, but the group from Austin will be delayed in getting to England. Pru is honored and so excited. She packs her bags and heads to London. Her husband Christopher will follow in a few days.

Pru meets Chiv, plant grower and rock wall builder extraordinaire, at the plot of ground where the lovely bluebonnet garden resembling a Texas country hillside will emerge for the show. She learns that there are many people involved in the design, funding and implementation of this project. Twyla Woodford is the mastermind behind this project and president of the ARGS and will relieve Pru of her duties as soon as she arrives. Twyla doesn't arrive with the rest of the ARGS group. She comes a couple days later.

Pru meets Twyla alone late one afternoon at the garden plot and has a nice chat with her. She learns that someone wants to make changes to the garden and Twyla is not happy about it. However, Twyla assures Pru that she will make everything work out in the end. Twyla is found murdered in the garden the next morning.

THE BLUEBONNET BETRAYAL is written with very detailed yet realistic explanation and description of every person and scene. There are a plethora of players in this sensational cozy mystery, and you almost need a score card to keep up with who's who. Twyla has assembled two ex-lovers, one ex- husband, a former student and a unique assortment of Texans to produce her bluebonnet garden. Not everyone is playing for the same reason. Pru's husband Christopher, a former detective chief inspector with the London Metropolitan Police, comes in undercover to help Pru find Twyla's murderer. Their antics are hilarious and the plot takes several twists and turns in tracking down the killer. There is a lot of dissention between many of the characters, and everyone is a suspect until they can be ruled out completely.

THE BLUEBONNET BETRAYAL is a delightful, easy summer read in Marty Wingate's A Potting Shed Mystery series. You gardeners out there will certainly enjoy it. Before each chapter, Ms. Wingate includes snippets of the ARGS By-laws or Tips and Trends from the group's newsletters. They are an added laugh as well, once you get to know the characters.

Book Summary

Bestselling author Marty Wingate “plants clever clues with a dash of romantic spice,” raves Mary Daheim. Now Wingate’s inimitable gardening heroine, Pru Parke, is importing a precious bloom from Texas—and she won’t let a vicious murder stop her.

Pru’s life in England is coming full circle. A Texas transplant, she’s married to the love of her life, thriving in the plum gardening position she shares with her long-lost brother, and prepping a Chelsea Flower Show exhibit featuring the beloved bluebonnets of the Texas hill country. Technically, Twyla Woodford, the president of a gardening club in the Lone Star State, is in charge of the London event, but Pru seems to be the one getting her hands dirty. When they finally do meet, Pru senses a kindred spirit—until Twyla turns up dead.

Although Twyla’s body was half buried under a wall in their display, Pru remains determined to mount a spectacular show. Twyla would have insisted. So Pru recruits her husband, former Detective Chief Inspector Christopher Pearse, to go undercover and do a bit of unofficial digging into Twyla’s final hours. If Pru has anything to say about it, this killer is going to learn the hard way not to mess with Texas.