Thank you to the publishers for this review copy, I had not heard of this book before it was selected for Between The covers. I can confirm that this is another excellent pick from The Between The Covers team. This is a gentle mystery to solve, which will ensure you are tied in knots until the very end. Excellent plotting, good pace and some interesting characters. Who can you believe? Do you know your plants? Very happy to recommend.

Intoxicating in every way and with so many layers I wasn't able to put it down and Devil's Breath ticks every box and delivers a stand out mystery which like the most perfect rose is beautiful whilst it's thorns have a razor sharp edge. Devil's Breath truly is a highly addictive and sinisterly gripping read with a cast of tantalizing characters trapped within a world of obsession and revenge which coupled with seriously good writing and a truly poisonous plot left me spell bound and desperate for more. Professor Eustacia Rose lives a solitary life in her London flat and building her own extensive collection of poisonous plants in her secret garden. Haunted by her past and spying on her neighbors through the telescope in her poisonous garden and Eustacia quickly becomes fascinated by the beautiful Simone and her tangled life including the various men who inhabit it. As desire turns to obsession, Professor Rose cannot help but follow the source of her affection and desperately try to learn all she can about her new fascination but when a chance encounter sees the two women coming face to face and even start to become friends and Eustacia cannot help but let her guard down and let the stunning Simone into her life and more importantly her secret and toxic garden. But when the Professor returns home to find her beloved garden destroyed and several of her most poisonous plants stolen and the awful consequences of her obsession take on a new and sinister edge leading her down the garden path towards bittersweet revenge and terrible murder, where she is prime suspect. Devil's Breath is a story where the characters take the lead and are as intricate and as fascinating as the most beautiful flower but can have a poisonous effect on those who get to close and I loved the twisted dynamics they ran throughout the story and the obsessions that grew around them. At it's heart this is a story of obsession gone mad and leading character Professor Eustacia Rose is a wonderful creation, twisted, damaged and obsessive but at the same time earning your sympathies and left me secretly longing that she survives and finds her redemption. The razor sharp writing is spot on in every way and adds to a tantalizing plot that kept me guessing to the very end and writer Jill Johnson deserves all the praise she gets in this most imaginative and entertaining mystery. Devil's Breath is stunning and has a poisonous edge which I found irresistible!!!

Interesting characters, a great set up for further books, an intriguingly ambiguous conclusion - I really liked this book. The gardeners question time meets Sherlock Holmes quote is the perfect description for a mystery that has a distinctly different feel to it. It's definitely a contemporary crime but has some of the quirkiness of the golden age, as well as a fascination with poisonous plants that Agatha Christie would have admired. There's a mildly gothic feeling to it, all the twists you could want, and the promise of more to come.

Eustacia Rose is a disgraced professor of plant toxicology. Mysterious and unfortunate events have led to her life as an (almost certainly) neurodivergent loner, who takes solace in the roof garden of deadly plants she has lovingly tended - that is until she finds herself entranced by the life of a beautiful stranger who lives opposite her building. Sure that she sees the woman being abducted, Eustacia throws herself into solving the crime of her missing neighbour and as the investigation progresses it becomes clear that it has more than a little to do with Eustacia's past. This is clever and has a pleasingly dry humour that contrasts nicely with the twists and turns of the plot. It looks like this is the first of a series and I am intrigued to see where the author takes Eustacia next.

The Woman In The Garden, previously published as Devil’s Breath, is the first book in the Professor Eustacia Rose Mystery series by British author, Jill Johnson. In the year since the incident at her lab that saw her made redundant, former Professor of Botanical Toxicology at UCL, Eustacia Rose has remained a recluse. She lost her beloved father around the same time, and still wears his suit, fob watch and hairstyle. Instead of teaching, she carefully tends her rooftop garden: fifty-two highly poisonous specimens that require very special handling. Also on the rooftop, her high-resolution telescope which, on cloudy days, is aimed at her neighbours’ windows: observing that most puzzling aspect of life, human behaviour. Each person gets labelled with an appropriate botanical name according to what Eustacia sees of them from her perch. She worries about one particularly attractive neighbour, a woman regularly visited by four very different men, one of whom she is dismayed to recognise, while another seems violent. Her concern sees her stalking the woman, apparently called Simone, about whom she learns a little more in a chance encounter. Then she witnesses Simone being abducted from the street. The police are useless, but Simone’s elderly neighbour proves very resourceful. But then, her precious garden is thoroughly vandalised and some of her specimens are stolen, and when there’s a death by plant poison, Eustacia once again comes to the notice of DCI Richard Roberts: her access to these plants, and her history with the victim, make her his prime suspect. Johnson gives the reader a quirky protagonist who has a little trouble reading social cues but acts purely out of good intentions. The liberal inclusion throughout of botanical names and the symptoms those plants cause will have the eyes of many readers glazing over, although she does provide a handy glossary of plants at the end. An enjoyable cosy mystery with a few twists to keep the reader guessing before the reveal, and it will be interesting to see what Eustacia gets up to in book two, Hell’s Bells. This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press.