Catalog

Record Details

Catalog Search



Back to the garden : a novel / Laurie R. King.

King, Laurie R., (author.).

Summary:
A fifty-year-old cold case involving California royalty comes back to life--with potentially fatal consequences. The Gardener Estate is one of the most storied and beloved places on the West Coast: a magnificent house in vast formal grounds, home to a family that shaped California--and fought hard to conceal the turmoil and eccentricities within their walls. And now, just as the turmoil seems buried and the Estate prepares to move into a new future, construction work unearths a grim relic of the estate's history: a skull, hidden away some fifty years ago. Inspector Raquel Laing of the SFPD Cold Case Unit has her work cut out for her. Back in the '70s, the Estate was a commune, when its young heir, Rob Gardener, turned the palatial setting into a counterculture Eden of peace, love, and equality. But the '70s were also a time when serial killers preyed on such innocents--monsters like The Highwayman, whose case has just assumed a whole new urgency. Could these bones belong to one of his victims? For Raquel Laing--a woman who knows all about hidden turmoil and eccentricities--the Gardener bones seem clearly linked to The Highwayman. But as she dives into the Estate's archives for evidence of his presence, what she finds there begins to take on a dark reality of its own. Everything brings her back to Rob Gardener himself--now a gray-haired recluse, then a troubled young Vietnam vet whose girlfriend vanished after a midsummer festival at the Estate, fifty years ago. But a lot of people seem to have disappeared from the Gardener Estate that summer, when the commune fell apart and its residents scattered: a young woman, her child, Rob's brother Fort. The pressure is on, and Raquel needs to solve this case--before The Highwayman slips away, or another Gardener vanishes.

Record details

  • ISBN: 9780593496565
  • ISBN: 0593496566
  • Physical Description: 322 pages ; 25 cm.
  • Publisher: New York : Bantam Books, [2022]
Subject: Policewomen > Fiction.
Murder > Investigation > Fiction.
Cold cases (Criminal investigation) > Fiction.
Communal living > Fiction.
California > Fiction.
Genre: Detective and mystery fiction.

Available copies

  • 59 of 64 copies available at SPARK Libraries.

Holds

  • 0 current holds with 64 total copies.
Show Only Available Copies
Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Status Due Date
Albright Memorial Library MYS KING (Text) 50686016218583 Adult Fiction Available -
Alexander Hamilton Memorial Free Library M KIN (Text) 37268003148244 AHMFL Mystery Available -
Altoona Area Public Library F KIN (Text) 33240005147619 Adult Fiction Available -
Annie Halenbake Ross Library F Kin (Text)
Memorial: Regina Kraus by John & Karen Wood
00155276 ADULT Fiction Available -
Bedford County Library F KIN (Text) 35010001097565 Adult Fiction Available -
Bethel Tulpehocken Public Library KIN (Text) 33249025365309 Fiction Available -
Boone Area Library KIN (Text) 33249024515821 Fiction Available -
Boyertown Community Library KIN (Text) 33249024847786 Fiction Available -
Collinsville Community Library Adults KIN Fiction (Text) 34259000555021 Adult Area New Available -
Degenstein Community Library FIC KING (Text) 35031301229130 Adult Fiction Available -

Summary: A fifty-year-old cold case involving California royalty comes back to life--with potentially fatal consequences. The Gardener Estate is one of the most storied and beloved places on the West Coast: a magnificent house in vast formal grounds, home to a family that shaped California--and fought hard to conceal the turmoil and eccentricities within their walls. And now, just as the turmoil seems buried and the Estate prepares to move into a new future, construction work unearths a grim relic of the estate's history: a skull, hidden away some fifty years ago. Inspector Raquel Laing of the SFPD Cold Case Unit has her work cut out for her. Back in the '70s, the Estate was a commune, when its young heir, Rob Gardener, turned the palatial setting into a counterculture Eden of peace, love, and equality. But the '70s were also a time when serial killers preyed on such innocents--monsters like The Highwayman, whose case has just assumed a whole new urgency. Could these bones belong to one of his victims? For Raquel Laing--a woman who knows all about hidden turmoil and eccentricities--the Gardener bones seem clearly linked to The Highwayman. But as she dives into the Estate's archives for evidence of his presence, what she finds there begins to take on a dark reality of its own. Everything brings her back to Rob Gardener himself--now a gray-haired recluse, then a troubled young Vietnam vet whose girlfriend vanished after a midsummer festival at the Estate, fifty years ago. But a lot of people seem to have disappeared from the Gardener Estate that summer, when the commune fell apart and its residents scattered: a young woman, her child, Rob's brother Fort. The pressure is on, and Raquel needs to solve this case--before The Highwayman slips away, or another Gardener vanishes.

Additional Resources