Murder at the Royal Botanic Gardens is the fifth book in Andrea Penrose’s Wrexford and Sloane series. I came upon the series after receiving the sixth book, Murder at the Serpentine Bridge. I enjoyed the book so much that I went back to the series from the beginning, and I haven’t been disappointed. With Murder at the Royal Botanic Gardens I have finally caught up to where the series started for me.

The Earl of Wrexford and Lady Charlotte Sloane are preparing for their wedding. Neither of them has any love for the demands of society in Regency London, but they must adhere to certain rules. Charlotte struggles a bit with the idea of being shackled to a man once again, even though she loves the Earl, and knows he would never ask her to compromise her integrity. It’s a bit complicated since she has a secret identity as one of London’s noted satirical artists, A.J. Quill. Wrexford knows all of this and loves her all the more as an intelligent, independent woman.

Their first outing as an engaged couple is to a reception at the Royal Botanic Gardens where a prominent botanist is expected to announce the discovery of a plant to battle malaria. Before this can happen, he is found dead on the grounds. At first, it appears to be a heart attack or stroke, but closer observation indicates poison.

Neither Wrexford nor Charlotte see any reason to involve themselves in the investigation and attempt to put it aside and focus on their upcoming nuptials. However, they are drawn into the mystery again when an old adversary whom they once thought they would never see again turns up among those suspected of wanting to steal the botanist’s work.

I very much liked the slow pace of the development of the relationship between Wrexford and Charlotte. they started out wary of each other and gradually grew into friends before admitting their feelings for each other. Neither of them are naive teenagers; they have lived well-lived behind themselves and can appreciate each other despite less than complimentary personality traits. It’s been a nice, slow burn to this point.

Most of the books in this series I’ve said you don’t need to have read any of the previous ones. Murder at the Royal Botanic Gardens changes that a bit as the return of an adversary from a previous story would leave readers a bit confused. Penrose does a terrific job with the other recurring characters in the story. There’s enough information given about them to follow along with how they came to be at this point without it feeling forced or like an information dump. However, without knowing the complete background of this adversary, it’s hard to understand what it means when he returns to London.

I’ve always felt that when reading the books in this series, I’m reading an intelligent book. It’s set in the same time as Bridgerton, but it shows a part of society where the wealthy were able to pursue academic advances due to not having concerns about money. This is in sharp contrast to other Regency-era stories that seem to focus on romance. The romance is there between Wrexford and Charlotte, but it builds slowly and is secondary to everything else going on in their lives.

The plant they are talking about here is obviously cinchona bark, which was isolated in 1820 as quinine to be used to treat malaria. I was intrigued enough by the story here to look up the history of the discovery of quinine to treat malaria, and Murder at the Royal Botanic Gardens does a good job of creating a scenario just before French chemists managed to isolate it. It would seem the race was on.

The adversaries here are good. They are looking to strictly make a profit where the slain botanist would give it as a gift to society, much the way Jonas Salk did with the polio vaccine. The one problem I struggled with was that the book is set in 1812, and one of the men in London is an American Naval Officer. There is talk of the “trouble” between the two countries, but I would think the British Navy would imprison any American Naval Officer who turned up during this time, and if they didn’t, it would be a cause for alarm. Penrose explains this by giving him the reputation of a bit of a mercenary, but I still had difficulty believing that this would happen between these two countries at this time.

Other than that one plot point, Murder at the Royal Botanic Gardens was an intriguing mystery that I thoroughly enjoyed. If you haven’t read the Wrexford and Sloane series before now, start at the beginning. They are all worth the investment of time to grasp the complete story. This moves the characters into a new life, and it’s a welcome one to keep the series interesting. I highly recommend it.

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