The Garden Tour Affair: A Gardening Mystery - Hardcover

Ripley, Ann

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0553106937 ISBN 13: 9780553106930

Publisher: Bantam, 1999

Synopsis

Ann Ripley's charming and savvy series starring the irrepressible Louise Eldridge has delighted mystery and gardening fans alike--and this time the horticultural expert and reluctant sleuth tangles with a new and even more dangerous plot of quick-growing lies, betrayal, and murder.

What could be more enjoyable for Louise than a weekend in Connecticut with her family, filming a garden tour for her popular television show, Gardening with Nature? The historic Litchfield Falls Inn is idyllic, and the tour will feature the famous Sacred Blood iris.  Everything seems perfect--until, there amid the verbena and love-in-a-mist, Louise finds a rampant overgrowth of the human species.

Among an uneasy group of guests are a pair of unhappy yuppie newlyweds; a fragile, flower-crazy poetess; a widow suspected of murder; a bankrupt heir to the innkeeper's fortune; and the dashing, prominent botanist who developed the controversial Sacred Blood iris.  Most of them have met before, and you can hardly cut the tension with a scythe.  So it doesn't strike Louise as an accident when their gracious, wealthy hostess trips--almost fatally--on a loose stair rod.

Her suspicions take root when, the very next day, a guest falls to his death on nearby Bear Mountain.  Within hours another guest plunges down the inn's picturesque waterfall in an apparent suicide.  Throw in some mysterious bumps in the night and passionate sighs overheard in the hallway, and Louise knows this is no garden-variety gathering.  Here the grapevine whispers of warring lovers, botanical scams, academic scandal, and family finagling.

Is someone playing Grim Reaper in the Litchfield Falls paradise? And how many more guests--including one nosy garden show host--are about to be cut down?

About this title

Review:

Ann Ripley's dirt-digging amateur sleuth, Louise Eldridge, plans a weekend trip to Connecticut with her husband Bill, their peevish teenage daughter Janie, Janie's boyfriend Chris, and his mother Nora. Louise is hoping to escape the heat and the constant stream of dead bodies that keep turning up near her suburban Washington, D.C., home. (See Ripley's previous three books in this garden-happy series: Mulch, Death of a Garden Pest, and Death of a Political Plant.)

Not surprisingly, the garden tour--which Louise is televising for her PBS show, "Gardening with Nature"--turns out to be a busman's holiday. First the elderly hostess at the upscale Litchfield Falls Inn meets with a suspicious though miraculously not serious accident right after the bevy of bluestocking guests have introduced themselves. Next, an undercurrent of barely hidden lusts and professional resentments breaks loose when a tempestuously charming botany professor has a fatal fall while climbing a local mountain. Suspicion falls immediately on the Gasparras, a plant-breeding couple who have accused the professor of stealing their research into the creation of a red iris, and on Mark and Sandy Post, former students of the professor who are clearly hiding a puzzling ménage à trois. But Louise barely has time to scan the guests for guilty expressions before another body is found. Naturally, there are a number of dead-end garden paths that Louise and her cohorts must wander down before the identity of the killer--or killers--is revealed.

Ripley's series appears to be picking up steam. Her characters haven't quite come to full life, but the plot of The Garden Tour Affair is tight and interesting. If the cogent gardening essays scattered throughout the book are meant to be indicative of the tone of Louise's TV show, she must be a dynamo onscreen. The essays are punchy and fun, covering topics from potagers to genetic engineering, and illuminating seemingly minor plot points nicely. --Barrie Trinkle

From the Back Cover:

Green Thumbs Way Up for the Gardening Mysteries of Ann Ripley!

Death of a Political Plant:

"The next time your yard calls out for a good weeding, nurture the gardener first. Plop down on the lawn chair, ignore the june bugs, and enjoy the read."
--USA Today

"Certain to appeal to mystery readers with green thumbs!"
--The Denver Post

Death of a Garden Pest:

"A hybrid of a traditional whodunit and an up-to-the-minute gardening guide."
--The Denver Post

"Gardening and murder make a fascinating combination in death of a garden pest. Gardener-sleuth Louise Eldridge offers an enchanting view of gardens while facing down dauntingly evil opponents."
--Carolyn G. Hart

Mulch:

"Ann Ripley plants clues in unexpected places, develops a plot with interesting dirt, and seeds her story with colorful characters, including a captivating, noxious villain. Mulch is not your garden-variety mystery."
--New York Times bestselling author Diane Mott Davidson

"Mulch is one of those little gems."
--Mystery Lovers Bookshop News

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0553106937
• ISBN 13: 9780553106930
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320