The Barnes & Noble Review
Law school dropout Abby Knight is not your typical small-business owner. Still, she's enjoying the first bloom of success as an entrepreneur and trying not to worry too much about the thorny problem of what Bloomers (her little flower shop in New Chapel, Indiana) should do about the new local business that's undercutting her prices.
When a big black SUV crunches her beloved Corvette, parked right outside her shop early one morning, cop's daughter Abby is determined to make sure that the hit-and-run driver sees the error of his ways. But soon she has to wonder if her quarry's motives for avoiding her and the police go deeper than the desire to protect his insurance rates. Could the elusive miscreant be the killer who fled a nearby crime scene only moments before her classy car met its doom? Abby's soon on the scent, gathering leads and evidence to arrange into an elaborate bouquet of wrongdoing that she plans to present to the proper authorities. Meanwhile, the villain that Abby and her allies are pursuing lays some deadly groundwork to transform her intricate arrangement into an inquisitive florist's funeral wreath.
Mum's the Word is a delightful debut for Kate Collins's Flower Shop mystery series. Sue Stone
