Shakespearean scholar and philanthropist Ezra Bainbridge, patriarch of one of Erin, Ohio's wealthiest old families, lives quietly and happily at his Stratford Court compound with three triplet daughters until accusations of elder abuse roil the family.
Amateur sleuth Sebastian McCabe and his friend Jeff Cody are drawn into the controversy as objective observers but are soon ensnared in a puzzling series of horrendous murders, each one of which is marked by the presence of a flower. It takes McCabe and Cody to figure out the meaning of these floral tributes, but not until it is almost too late.
At the center Stratford Court, and of the mystery, is an English garden around which stand the homes of Ezra Bainbridge and his daughters, all of them named for Shakespearean characters-Ophelia, the professor; Desdemona, the rebel; and Portia, the social climber.
The story finds Erin much changed by the COVID-19 pandemic, with some of our old friends gone forever and others transformed.
Readers of the early Ellery Queen mystery novels will find more than a passing similarity to those classics, from The English Garden Mystery title of the novel to the "Challenge to the Reader" at the point in the book where all the clues have been presented.
