I read two books this week. One was the sequel to the cozy mystery I reviewed in my last post. The Retired Assassin’s Guide to Orchid Hunting, by Naomi Kuttner, would seem to follow one theme from the previous book—gardens. But orchids are less about gardening and more about collecting, especially because people mostly grow them either in pots (if they have a few) or in a greenhouse (if they have a bunch), and the word “hunting” in the title is no coincidence; orchid aficionados are all about seeking the rare, the storied, the unattainable bloom. A symposium on the subject is sure to draw a large group of rabid fans, and that is the set-up for this second story about Dante the retired assassin and his friends—Eleanor the (former?) con artist, and Charlie, the gardener who sees and talks to ghosts. Just your ordinary paranormal cozy mystery!

Dante has been working hard to acclimatize to “civilian” life with the assistance of regular AA (Assassins Anonymous) meetings on Zoom. He is learning to love the cat who insisted on moving in with him, and is easing up on his isolationist habits by actually contemplating a first date with the local veterinarian. But when the orchid symposium comes to town and Te Kohe’s resident expert on orchids dies under suspicious circumstances, Dante and his new friends team up to try to figure out which of the three other prominent figures at the gathering might be responsible, and why—and they only have the length of the convention to solve the mystery, so they’re on a tight timetable.

There are a couple of subplots; one involves Inspector Avery, who is actually back in town on vacation, choosing to spend his days off at the orchid symposium, and the other features a beautiful but weirdly attentive woman Dante is convinced has appeared at a suspicious moment and may be a threat to his retirement (and continued existence).

I enjoyed the inclusion of the paranormal elements, weaving together Charlie’s talent for perceiving the dearly departed with New Zealand’s flora and fauna and cultural/spiritual beliefs. The Pūriri or Ghost Moth was the perfect guide to help solve the mystery of the elusive Ghost Orchid all the collectors were pursuing, as well as an additional vehicle to expose the murderer. Another entertaining read from this series.

The other book harks back a few months to my discovery of the fantasy author T. Kingfisher and her weirdly wonderful stories. Kingfisher started out as a children’s book author called Ursula Vernon, but she began to feel confined by the inability to include certain elements in her storytelling (murder and mayhem) and decided to branch out into adult fantasy and horror fiction, as well as what she describes as her “occasional oddities.” The latter are the books with which I enthusiastically connected, including Nettle and Bone, A Sorceress Comes to Call, Hemlock & Silver, and a few others. I’m not much of a horror reader (too suggestible), so I will probably give some of her books a miss, but I am completely on board for her fantasy, so I put Nine Goblins on my waiting list at the library and finally snared it this past week.

The story had a bit of a slow start, because there was a lot of scene-setting background to get through before the action began, and it also turned out to be on the short side, a novella of only 160 pages. But once I got past the descriptive information-dump about goblins, orcs, elves, and other competitors for real estate with the ever-expanding human race, it turned into a typical whimsical Kingfisher tale with underlying Terry Pratchett vibes about more serious themes, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I discovered in the acknowledgments that Nine Goblins was actually the first of her “occasional oddities,” self-published in 2013, and that its success (though modest) led to all the vastly better-known others. So I’m glad to have come across it as Kingfisher’s “origin story,” so to speak.

Next up: The Calamity Club, by Kathryn Stockett, and The Orchard, by Peter Heller. Stay tuned.