It's late spring and young artist Gerry Coneybear and her twenty cats are thrilled to finally be able to get out of the house and into the garden surrounding her 200-year-old house on the Ottawa River. But Gerry is having a time keeping her curious cats in their own yard, safe from the new neighbours' large dog. Her neighbours' marriage isn't quite what it should be, and when the philandering husband is murdered, the wife is the obvious suspect. Or ought to be. As events unfold next door, Gerry watches from her garden, where she picks rhubarb, weeds, and plants her flowers, catnip and herbs, all supervised by her cats and her friend and part-time housekeeper Prudence. A terrible car crash, an eccentric train engineer (and his equally eccentric wife), and a midnight visit to the house next door all contribute to this cozy mystery coming out all right in the end. And there's jam-making. And ghosts.

Born in Montreal and raised in Hudson, Quebec, Louise Carson studied music in Montreal and Toronto, played jazz piano and sang in the chorus of the Canadian Opera Company. Carson has published fourteen books: Rope, a blend of poetry and prose; Mermaid Road, a lyrical novella; A Clearing, a collection of poetry; Executor, a mystery set in China and Toronto; Dog Poems, a collection of poetry; The Last Unsuitable Man, a thriller set in the Sunshine Coast; her historical fiction Deasil Widdy series: In Which, Measured, and Third Circle; and her Maples Mysteries series: The Cat Among Us, The Cat Vanishes, The Cat Between, The Cat Possessed, and A Clutter of Cats.

Her poems appear in literary magazines, chapbooks and anthologies from coast to coast, including The Best Canadian Poetry 2013. She's been short-listed in FreeFall Magazine's annual contest three times, and one poem won a Manitoba Magazine Award. Her novel In Which was shortlisted for a Quebec Writers' Federation award in 2019. She has presented her work in many public forums, including Hudson's Storyfest 2015, as well as in Montreal, Ottawa, Kingston, Toronto, Saskatoon and New York City.

She lives in St-Lazare, Quebec, where she writes, teaches music and gardens.

Louise Carson's profile page