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Margaret Finch is around 6 feet tall, in her 50s, and nowhere near delicate. She lives in a small cabin on a narrow and twisty road and drives an old pickup truck. She has a schedule of what to wear to work each day in her academic lab, and she keeps track of daily events in a notebook.
It may not be surprising to hear that Margaret isn’t a popular gal. In fact, the other staff at her university call her Big Bird behind her back.
But Margaret is skilled at being a research assistant (essentially managing a lab under a professor). The professor is a talented, handsome, and well-liked botanist, and they are working on a project that could lead to a treatment for cancer. Margaret is devoted to the man, as he has been good to her and has always seemed above reproach.
One day, though, her world is shaken and the department is roiled when a fairly young man is found dead. Campus police are saying it’s clearly due to the known heart condition he had. But Margaret isn’t convinced; in fact, she thinks he’s been murdered. She can see signs of possible poisoning. No one listens to her, of course, but she is determined to find out the truth.
The Botanist’s Assistant is a mildly entertaining cozy mystery. I do enjoy reading about older main characters (at my “certain age”) and/or those on the fringes in some way. Here, we get to see the world from the point of view of a kind of lonely woman who finds comfort in order and routine. As always in these kinds of scenarios, I enjoy when she makes a new friend and finds a partner in solving crime. And, of course, when she invariably is proved right.
I didn’t love the book or the characters but it was a fairly light and easy — and clean — read.
Rated: Mild. Profanity includes a few instances of moderate profanity and a few instances of the name of Deity in vain. A character is murdered by poison and hits their head and bleeds. Sexual content includes references to characters having extramarital affairs.
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