Death in the Secret Garden — Richard Forrest

Children's book author Lyon Wentworth fights to protect a Vietnam veteran accused of a grisly crime in this chilling psychological thriller.

They find her by the river, naked, cold -- and dead. Police chief Rocco Herbert recognizes her as the checkout girl at the Murphysville supermarket, an ordinary citizen of the easygoing Connecticut suburb whose death was anything but easy. In one hand, she clutches a First Cavalry Division shoulder patch, the kind handed out by Spook, a traumatized Vietnam veteran who gives the mementos of his old unit to everyone he meets. Maybe Spook killed her, maybe he didn't, but without Lyon Wentworth's help, he's going to hang.
 
A children's book author with a knack for solving impossible crimes, Lyon and his wife, no-nonsense state senator Bea Wentworth, are Spook's only hope. But as the couple digs into the circumstances surrounding the girl's murder, they'll find that Murphysville hides as many grim secrets as the jungles of Vietnam.
 
There has never been an amateur sleuth quite like Lyon Wentworth, a hot-air balloonist who solves crimes between writing bestsellers. Death in the Secret Garden will push him closer to the limit than he's ever gone before.
 
Death in the Secret Garden is the 9th book in the Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.