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A Deadly Serious Gardening Contest is the seventh Sage Gardens cozy mystery from Cindy Bell, with the retirement-community amateur sleuth Eileen Sharp investigating another death among her Sage Gardens neighbors. The case in this entry takes place during the complex's annual garden contest, and the murder of a fellow resident during the judging unspools through the community ensemble Bell has been developing across the series.
Bell's strength in A Deadly Serious Gardening Contest is the careful retirement-community texture. The garden-contest politics, the specific rhythms of a small community knowing each other's business, and the regular ensemble of friends, staff, and antagonists all carry the book. Fans of Rita Mae Brown's Mrs. Murphy series or of Joan Hess's Maggody novels will recognize the careful small-community cozy register.
The mystery resolves quickly. The community texture is the actual draw.
Three stars. Reliable late-series cozy. The A Deadly Serious Gardening Contest Cindy Bell book works for series readers. New readers to the Sage Gardens series should start with the first entry.
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