Two communities. One flower competition. So much deadheading!

Aldermaston's having a bad day. A falling hanging-basket has killed the town's mayor, and a second narrowly missed him. His wife wants him to build her new greenhouse in three days, and someone is sending him death threats.

This isn't the quiet life he expected as the new Marquess of Mortiforde.

It's the annual Borders in Blossom competition, and Mortiforde is battling with Portley Ridge in the final. But this is no parochial flower competition. The mayor's mishap looks like murder, and there's another body in the river. Someone desperately wants Portley Ridge to win for the fifteenth successive year.

So when a mysterious group of guerrilla gardeners suddenly carpet bomb Mortiforde with a series of stunning floral delights one night, a chain reaction of floral retaliation ensues.

Can Aldermaston survive long enough to uncover who is trying to kill him, and why? And can he get his wife's greenhouse built in time?

Blooming Murder is the first book in the Mortiforde Mystery series. If you love the eccentricity of MC Beaton's Agatha Raisin and Hamish MacBeth books, you'll love this first instalment of the Marquess of Mortiforde mysteries.