The Lifeline — Margaret Mayhew

When a chilling discovery is made in one of the manor's greenhouses, the Frog End villagers rely on the Colonel to reluctantly solve another baffling mystery.

Following the untimely death of her mother, Ursula Swynford, Ruth Harvey has taken over the manor in Frog End, where she runs a successful plant-selling business and provides gardening therapy for an increasing number of her husband Dr Tom Harvey's troubled patients: embittered Lawrence Deacon, lonely Joyce Reed, widowed Tanya Carberry and wheelchair-bound Johnny Turner, the young victim of a horrific motorbike crash.

Gardening at the manor quickly becomes a much-needed lifeline for the group, and all seems to be going well -- until the major stumbles across a body among the tomato plants in one of the greenhouses. Once again, the manor is the scene of a brutal murder -- and, once again, the Colonel reluctantly finds himself drawn into solving the mystery.