Premeditated Myrtle by Elizabeth C. Bunce

Myrtle is twelve but she's already solving mysteries.  Her father is the prosecuting attorney and he keeps trying to tell her to be careful.  She doesn't listen well.  Then her next door neighbor dies.  She was an old woman and they think it was a heart attack.  Myrtle doesn't.

Algonquin Young Readers and Edelweiss gave me the opportunity to read this book for review (thank you).  It will be published on April 8th.

She sneaks over to visit with gardener but doesn't learn much.  She wanders around and finds that all the lilies have been destroyed.  She also finds footprints and evidence that the old woman had been out there.  She thinks the gardener might be guilty and the cop agrees and arrests him.

In the meantime, she gets the coroner to test for poison.  The gardener confesses and says he killed her with arsenic.  But the post mortem shows she died of digitalis. She asks the gardener why he confessed when he wasn't the killer.  He won't answer.

She goes on investigating and then she thinks the young lady who inherited it did it.  After all, she found newspaper articles telling of her murders.  That was another false lead.

Then they kidnap her father.  She's to come alone, but doesn't.  It's an exciting ending with an unusual killer.

I really enjoyed reading this!