Beryl Kyte, a letter carrier who lives in the Winnipeg neighbourhood of Norwood Flats, goes out for a hike one beautiful spring Sunday and literally trips over a body in the woods of the St. Vital Park. It's a dead woman with mushrooms sprouting in her mouth. In a panic, Beryl struggles out to the main road and manages to hail a cellphone-toting passerby who notifies the police. Among the many officers who arrive on the scene is Inspector Frank Foote, whom she has seen around her neighborhood. A badly shaken Beryl is questioned and escorted home. It isn't long, however, before another body turns up and then another. As she follows the horrific discoveries in The Winnipeg Free Press, Beryl thinks she sees a pattern emerging. Beryl hadn't been of much help to the police in the case of the first dead woman--she'd only tripped over the body, after all -- but when things begin happening around her own home, she wishes they could be of some help to her. But she can't even make the call, for the crimes taking place in her yard -- someone has been deadheading her lobelia and someone has put a pretty little collar on her cat -- will just make the police think she's crazy. Except maybe that nice Inspector Frank Foote.

Alison Preston was born and raised in Winnipeg. After trying on a number of other Canadian cities, she returned to her hometown, where she currently resides. All of her books are set in the Norwood Flats area of Winnipeg, including The Rain Barrel Baby, The Geranium Girls, Cherry Bites, Sunny Dreams, The Girl in the Wall, and Blue Vengeance. A graduate of the University of Winnipeg, and a letter carrier for twenty-eight years, Alison was twice nominated for the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer, following the publications of her first two novels, The Rain Barrel Baby and A Blue and Golden Year. Alison went on to win the Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher for Sunny Dreams and the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction for The Girl in the Wall. She was also shortlisted for the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award and the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award for Cherry Bites.

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Alison Preston's first mystery, The Rain Barrel Baby, showed real promise. Her second proves it was no fluke. Winnipeg mail carrier Beryl Kyte, back from Baby, stumbles over a body, a young woman with mushrooms in her mouth. Two more murders follow and Beryl, like the rest of her Norwood Flats neighbours, is following the story in the papers. But she sees a connection the police have missed. And then strange things start happening. This is a solid, well-plotted mystery, with a lively setting and interesting characters.

The Globe and Mail