Murder in Brook Garden

About the Book

Roberta McBride, 33-year-old library director, former English teacher, computer whiz, quilter, folklore enthusiast, devotee of Shakespeare, Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, wife for five years to Lutheran minister Jonathan Cox.

Jonathan Cox, 34-year-old minister, gardener, woodworker, canoe enthusiast, descended from Virginia legislator and hanging judge, supporter of environmental groups, unions, underdogs, and all lost causes.

Hannah Brosie, 33 years old, Roberta's best friend from undergraduate days, an earth-mother figure who teaches sixth-grade language arts and social studies, divorced, mother of two boys, owner of fifteen cats, and organizer of weekend retreats for women grieving over the bones of failed relationships.

Larry Wheeler, 40 years old, best friend of Jonathan Cox, starving potter and tattoo artist, striving for the perfect circle in pottery, drawing, and life; lover of everything Chinese; dresses in yard-sale oxford cloth shirts and khaki pants and docksiders.

Elizabeth Duncan Shifflett, eighty-something widow of man she married and lost in the same year--1929--at the beginning of the Great Depression, flower gardener, knows everybody and virtually everything that goes on in Brook Garden.

Sister Magda, arrogant and malicious, runs a tight ship at the local food pantry and clothes closet; she has singlehandedly made the Brook County Red Cross bloodmobile a source of pride for the community.

Jack Higgins, the only centenarian in Brook Garden, teller of ghost stories and Jack tales, gardener extraordinaire, keeper of long-held secrets, owner of The Willow Inn.  Cora Mae Higgins, unmarried, the youngest of the ten children of Jack Higgins and his wife Betty Jean, dead for thirty years.

Lou Susmann, Jonathan's retired seminary professor, fills in for Jonathan while he takes a canoeing trip; provides essential emotional support for Roberta and the Garden.

Assorted other Brook Garden and county residents, and visitors to the festival, including Roberta's first love and his fiance, and a stranger who returns to Brook Garden after a twenty-year absence.

About the Author

Mona McMillan is the alter ego of Roberta McBride in only the smallest of ways. She has taught college English for nearly a quarter of a century and, like Roberta and Elizabeth, loves gardening and travel. Her native state, Virginia, has many lovely gardens.