Jason Prendergast built his fortune taking minerals from the earth near the Irish town of Drumclash, but bees became the real passion of his life once the mines gave up the last of their riches. When he dies after dining on honey from one of his own hives, village beekeepers suspect local bees are feasting on poisonous plants and infecting hives with deadly nectar.

Prendergast’s solicitor, Edward Gildea, consults his fellow beekeepers who think rhododendrons the most likely source of the poison. Only why is it that only Jason Prendergast’s hives were infected?  And why should bees suddenly take a liking to this particular plant? The Civic Guard prefers to look for a human hand and suspicion falls upon those locals who stand to benefit from the old man’s death, including several servants and an aged distant cousin who deliberately hacks her own rhododendron plants to bits in a crazed frenzy.

The chief suspect, however, is Phoebe Prendergast, a niece who gave up a promising career on the stage to look after the old man. Gildea can’t believe in Phoebe’s guilt and conceals from the police the fact that Prendergast was about to add a codicil to his will disinheriting her should she return to the stage—even after his death. Nor does the Phoebe’s odd behavior following the old man’s death bode well for her innocence.

The truth finally emerges during a wild chase in the abandoned mines deep under the earth of the green Irish hills near the old man’s mansion. Once again, Sheila Pim paints a vivid and affectionate portrait of life in a small Irish town in this 1952 novel, showing why contemporary critics called her “the Irish Angela Thirkell.”

Reviews

“The mining village of Drumclash, Ireland, circa 1950, is all abuzz when irascible curmudgeon Jason Prendergast dies after dining on honey taken from his own hives. In a town filled with eccentric characters, suspects abound, including the bees themselves. There’s Penrose, the morose chauffeur, and Vera, the vamping maid; throw in a couple of traveling thespians, some curious cousins, and a peculiar partner, and you have a typical Pim crew of likely candidates. Not one to fly off course, the head of the investigating Civic Guards gets a particular bee in his bonnet and suspects Phoebe, Prendergast’s niece and caregiver. Doubting that sweet Phoebe was involved in murder, professional lawyer and amateur apiarist Edward Gildea makes a beeline to come to her defense, a task that keeps him as busy as a bee in the second Pim detective novel to be reissued in the U.S., following Common or Garden Crime. Whether she’s holding forth on beekeeping lore or explaining the traits of mineral ore, Pim enthusiastically educates as much as she entertains.”
— Carol Haggas, Booklist

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