Back to the garden : a novel / Laurie R. King.
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]
- Copyright: ©2022
Search for related items by subject
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.
Other Formats and Editions
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.