The Botanist's Assistant — Peggy Townsend

A murder in the science lab shatters a woman's quiet and ordered life when she decides she must solve the crime herself in this entertaining and uplifting mystery.

Plenty of people consider Margaret Finch odd. Six-feet-tall and big-boned, she lives alone in a small cabin in the woods, drives a 20-year-old truck, and schedules her life so precisely you can tell the time and day of the week by the chore she is doing and what she is wearing.  But the same attributes that cause her to be labeled eccentric -- an obsessive attention to detail and the ability to organize almost anything -- make her invaluable in her job as Research Assistant II to a talented and charismatic botanist.

It's those very same qualities, however, that also turn Margaret into a target after a surprising death shakes the small university where she works. Even as authorities claim the death appears to be from natural causes, Margaret fears it might be something more: a murder born of jealousy and dark secrets. With the aid of a newly hired and enigmatic night custodian, Margaret finds herself thrust into the role of detective, forcing her to consider that she may not be able to find the killer before the killer finds her.

With a cast of quirky and likeable characters that one won't soon forget, The Botanist's Assistant is a delightful story of perseverance and the power in all of us to survive.