Peggy Townsend: The Botanist’s Assistant
I could not have loved this utterly charming mystery more. It’s original, it’s well written, it’s well plotted, and it has a wonderful main character in botanist Margaret Finch. Much like her name, Margaret resembles a large bird (and she is in fact referred to as Big Bird behind her back), and she values order, cleanliness and science above all else. In her work as a research assistant in a lab, these qualities serve her well. It’s people she has trouble with, not plants.
The only person she has true respect for is her boss, Dr. Deaver. When she discovers his body in his office, details seem off to her, details the busy police officer (who is busy ignoring Margaret’s suggestions of poison) seems not to notice. When Dr. Deaver’s death is declared a heart attack, Margaret knows, in the interest of truth and science, that she must discover what really happened. In this way, Margaret is similar to all amateur sleuths of every description. She fits into a narrower category – the neuro divergent detective, someone familiar to fans of detective fiction and TV for many years, from Columbo to Monk to E.J. Copperman’s classic Asperger detective to Nita Prose’s “maid.” All share a quirkiness and while there are many differences, their similarity is the observation of all details.