A hoe lot of trouble

Nina Quinn runs Taken by Surprise, a landscaping firm that gives clients surprise garden makeovers. It is the one part of her life going well. Her marriage to police detective Kevin Quinn has fallen apart because of his cheating, and her stepson Riley is sullen, antisocial and a steady source of trouble at home.

Then her tools start vanishing from her supplies, among them a valuable set of hoes. A far worse loss follows: the kind old man who first taught her to love gardening has died, and his death was not natural.

The crime has unsettled Nina's small Ohio town, and the local police, her soon-to-be-ex husband Kev among them, have no answers. Nina decides to look into it herself, using the same patience and stubborn digging that make her good at her job.

This is a cozy mystery with an amateur sleuth and a garden-centered setting. The tone is wry, with plenty of plant puns and domestic friction alongside the investigation. The danger rises as she pushes further, and she risks ending up buried in her own flower beds.