Abby and Marco come back from a long weekend in Key West to find that Nikki, Abby's roommate and best friend since grade school, has been implicated in the murder of her date.

Marco uses his PI license to help Nikki's attorney and Abby does her normal interference, snooping and hunting for things to help Nikki.

Abby's attitude toward being told to leave things alone and let the professionals deal with the problem bothered me more in this book than usual. I think it was her insistence that she *had* to help because it was Nikki in trouble. Or maybe it was that Bloomers (her flower shop) was short staffed and she still just walks out to go investigate.

All the normal characters are here, Nikki, Abby's parents, her cousin Jillian and her staff, Marco's mother and sister, and various shop people, cops and neighbors.

I didn't dislike the book and the story was really well done, I just wish that Abby would listen to people when they tell her that she could get hurt snooping. ( )

Didn't see that ending! ( )

At the beginning of this book I was losing a bit of patience, thinking I'd guessed whodunnit right off the bat, but the story was a good one and it was nice to see the protagonists relationship going smoothly with no manufactured bumps in the road. I was very pleasantly surprised to find that I was wrong at the end of the book too. This series continues to improve. ( )

Another faithful entry to the Hall of Shame. This series is racking up one point ratings before you could say disappointment. The biggest con against this book is that there's nothing to discuss after reading it. There can be no room for analysis because not one thing is up for debate in this cookie cutter story - I don't obviously mean this in a good way. The new participants in this sordid tale didn't get any depth ascribed to them and the recurrent ones barely get a mention. This may be a good time to take a break from this series. I badly need a change of scenery. ( )

Florist Abby Knight is delighted that her romance with hunky Private Investigator Marco Salvare is back on track. Her roommate Nikki Hiduke is less thrilled as she just broke up with her boyfriend. To cheer Nikki up, Abby convinces her to go to a speed dating event. Abby thinks she's found the perfect date for Nikki, but to her dismay Nikki is attracted to Jonas Treat, better known as "Treat the Cheat". When Jonas is found murdered shortly after their date, Nikki is the number one suspect. Abby works frantically to clear Nikki's name and find the real killer, even if the police and Marco don't want her help.

"Evil in Carnations" is another fun mystery in the Flower Shop cozy mystery series, a series that gets better with every book. Abby and Marco are back together and take their relationship up a notch (perhaps more than they realize!) and they make a good team working together. It is nice to have more of Nikki in this book and she too has grown as a character. There is also plenty of Abby's coworkers, Grace and Lottie, in the book, which adds a sweet touch to the book. There is a great sense of humor throughout the book, including (as always) Abby's mother's latest "art" creation and her cousin Jill's attempt to "help" out in the flower shop. In fact, both Abby's and Marco's family add quite a bit of humor to the book, including the end of the book which ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. The mystery itself is well plotted with plenty of suspects and the revelation of the identity of the killer and the motive for the murder adds a bit of poignancy to an otherwise humorous book.

"Evil in Carnations" is a nicely done cozy mystery. ( )