Back to the Garden by Laurie R. King

一座宏伟的房子、广阔的正式花园、一个塑造了加州的黄金家族，以及一个充满了现在著名艺术家的多彩的过去：园丁庄园是一个二十世纪的伊甸园。

而现在，正当庄园准备迈向新的未来时，一些艺术品的修复工作却挖出了庄园过去的残酷遗迹：一个藏了几十年的人类头骨。

探长Raquel Laing有她的工作要做了。50年前，庄园的年轻继承人Rob Gardener将他的宫殿式住宅变成了一个和平、爱和平等的反文化社区。但那也是一个连环杀手猎杀无辜者的时代–像海威德这样的怪物，其案件刚刚重新进入公众视野。

这个头骨是否属于他的一个受害者？
对拉奎尔来说，她是一个对丰富多彩的过去了如指掌的女人，这些骨头显然与海威威人有关。但是，当她潜入庄园的档案中寻找他存在的迹象时，她发现的东西开始有了自己的黑暗现实。

她发现的一切都让她回到了罗布-园丁本人。虽然他现在可能是一个白发苍苍的隐士，但当年他是一个有问题的年轻越南退伍军人，他的女朋友在庄园的仲夏节后失踪了。

但在那个夏天，当公社神秘地分崩离析时，很多人似乎都从园丁庄园消失了：一个年轻的女人和她的孩子，以及罗伯的兄弟，福特。

压力很大，拉奎尔需要解决这个案件–在 “海威 “溜走之前，或者在另一个园丁消失之前。

A fifty-year-old cold case involving California royalty comes back to life–with potentially fatal consequences–in this gripping standalone novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series.

A magnificent house, vast formal gardens, a golden family that shaped California, and a colorful past filled with now-famous artists: the Gardener Estate was a twentieth-century Eden.

And now, just as the Estate is preparing to move into a new future, restoration work on some of its art digs up a grim relic of the home’s past: a human skull, hidden away for decades.

Inspector Raquel Laing has her work cut out for her. Fifty years ago, the Estate’s young heir, Rob Gardener, turned his palatial home into a counterculture commune of peace, love, and equality. But that was also a time when serial killers preyed on innocents–monsters like The Highwayman, whose case has just surged back into the public eye.

Could the skull belong to one of his victims?
To Raquel–a woman who knows all about colorful pasts–the bones clearly seem linked to The Highwayman. But as she dives into the Estate’s archives to look for signs of his presence, what she unearths begins to take on a dark reality all of its own.

Everything she finds keeps bringing her back to Rob Gardener himself. While he might be a gray-haired recluse now, back then he was a troubled young Vietnam vet whose girlfriend vanished after a midsummer festival at the Estate.

But a lot of people seem to have disappeared from the Gardener Estate that summer when the commune mysteriously fell apart: a young woman, her child, and Rob’s brother, Fort.

The pressure is on, and Raquel needs to solve this case–before The Highwayman slips away, or another Gardener vanishes.