Cardamine: a New Zealand mystery

Kate never planned to stay in New Zealand. She was supposed to be on a flight back to England, until she lost her bag on a Waiheke Island vineyard tour and missed her plane.Her unlikely rescuer is Vivian Quincy Anderson: tall, eccentric, formally dressed, and utterly unlike anyone she has ever met. He invites her to stay at his grand country home, Cardamine, named after the wildflowers growing around the garden pond. Kate accepts, expecting a few quiet days while she sorts out her passport and rebooks her flight.But the house holds a mystery. Vivian's wife Tatyana, a glamorous foreign woman he met through the internet and married in haste, is supposedly abroad visiting her home country. Nobody seems to know exactly when she is coming back. Or whether she is coming back at all.As Kate settles into the strange rhythms of Cardamine, she is drawn deeper into Vivian's world, his Aspergers routines, his obsessive stamp collection, his almost childlike trust in people, and into the growing suspicion that Tatyana's absence is not voluntary.Blending cosy mystery, New Zealand travelogue, and a slow-building sense of dread, Cardamine is a warm, witty, and utterly original novel with a twist that reframes everything, and an ending that opens onto the world changing forever.Perfect for fans of cosy mysteries with vivid international settings, quirky casts of characters, and unexpected emotional depth.