Death in the Orchid Garden (Gardening Mysteries)

Description

Louise Eldridge is taking her public television garden show on the road--to Hawaii! But the tropical paradise isn't so idyllic once murder makes an unexpected appearance...

Lush with hibiscus, ficus, plumeria, and monkeypod trees, the island of Kauai is the perfect place for Louise to film a few episodes of Gardening with Nature.

After their shoot at the National Tropical Botanical Garden, Louise unwinds with a sunset walk on the beach. But at the base of a cliff, she makes a grisly discovery: the battered body of Matthew Flynn, a noted botanist. Her attempts to save his life are fruitless, and--after seeing his injuries firsthand--Louise is convinced that his death was no accident.

Now it'll take some serious digging for Louise to unearth more clues, but she'll have to be very careful, because this is one killer who is ready to plant her in the ground...

"Neatly plotted...Ripley's green thumb fans will relish the paradise island setting and Louise's reliable sleuthing." --Publishers Weekly

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Death of a Political Plant: A Gardening Mystery

Description

Ann Ripley's horticultural heroine, Louise Eldridge, enchanted mystery lovers of all varieties in Death of a Garden Pest and Mulch
.  Now she returns in a witty new tale of muckraking, murder, and deeply buried--and very dangerous--secrets.  

Louise's TV show, Gardening with Nature, has made her a celebrity, sweeping her from lawn-mower commercials all the way to the president's National Environmental Commission.  Not that Louise is about to get her hands dirty in the mudslinging campaigns of an election year.  As usual, her main concerns are right in her own backyard.

Here, in Washington's suburban Sylvan Valley, she is subject to an unwelcome infestation of houseguests that threatens to crowd out her houseplants.  Least welcome of all are three bossy busybodies in town for the Perennial Plant Society convention, who fete Louise as official "Plant Person of the Year" but press her to slash back the sweetgums and swamp oaks that give her beloved garden its pristine air.

Her grin-and-bear-it mood is lightened, however, by the arrival of an old flame.  Twenty years ago, in the first bloom of youth, Louise fell heavily for Jay McCormick's crooked smile and crusading charm.  Now, he's an investigative journalist looking worriedly over his shoulder.  Jay confides that he's come on two distinct undercover missions.  One is to ensure that his ex-wife, a high-powered political lawyer, doesn't cheat on the rules for custody of their young daughter.  Around the other, he raises an impenetrable thicket of secrecy.

But Jay's cover is blown when he surfaces, a nibbled corpse, in a neighbor's ornamental fishpond.  Who put him there? And what was the mysterious story he was investigating? Only Louise can unearth the trail that leads from a missing computer to a pistol-packing intruder trampling her purple-spotted toad lilies to evidence hidden where only a hardcore gardener could find it.  Soon she's digging up enough dirt--social, marital, and political--to uproot some of Washington's top players...if she doesn't get herself nipped in the bud first.

Ripening suspense, a thorny plot, and plenty of gardening tips make Death of a Political Plant a perfect bouquet of murder, mystery, and mayhem.

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The Perennial Killer: A Gardening Mystery

Description

On location in Colorado for her syndicated television show, Gardening with Nature, filming alpine butterflies and avalanche lilies, Louise Eldridge can see why this beautiful terrain is as precious as gold. Then the pure Rocky Mountain air is fouled by the discovery of elderly rancher Jimmy Porter's body, shot to death and draped like a coyote carcass over his own backyard fence. Louise soon discovers a staggering list of suspects, since Jimmy's plan to sell his 13,000-acre ranch to a government preservation program left a lot of family, friends, and competitors with much to lose. Throw in a second death, a closed nuclear plant, a CIA investigation involving Louise's husband, and a bullet hole in her cowboy hat, and Louise suddenly realizes she's onto a killer as hardy as the native skeleton weed-and seemingly as indestructible.

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Mulch (Gardening Mysteries)

Description

Rooting out a killer can dig you a grave...

Amateur gardener and housewife Louise Eldridge has big plans for her family's new Sylvan Valley home, situated among the flower of suburban Washington, D.C., society. Some Japanese iris here, some skunk cabbage there...and her own cozy cabin for her horticultural writings. But barely has she turned the topsoil when her organic mulching unearths the unidentifiable remains of a murder victim. Suddenly her elegant garden is a crime scene blighted by garish yellow police tape.

And Louise--cultivating the rich and restless wives of the neighborhood and their hothouse secrets--must find out who has gone missing. For only then can she root out a rare species of killer who could soon be digging her grave.

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The Garden Tour Affair: A Gardening Mystery

Description

Everything's coming up corpses....

Louise Eldridge is taking her popular television show, Gardening with Nature, on location to film a garden tour at the historic Litchfield Falls Inn. It's a weekend in the country that promises rest, relaxation, and some of New England's most beautiful gardens.

But the local grapevine whispers of warring lovers, botanical scams, academic scandal, and family finagling. The tension is so thick you can hardly cut it with a scythe. And then the uneasy group of assembled guests begin to meet with the most unfortunate of accidents.

Suddenly Louise suspects that someone is playing Grim Reaper in the Litchfield Falls paradise. How many more guests--including one nosy garden show host--are about to be cut down?

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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

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Death of a Garden Pest: A Gardening Mystery

Description

Unearthing murderers is quickly becoming the specialty of amateur gardener and housewife Louise Eldridge.  Her horticultural skills have garnered her a
role on the public television show Gardening with Nature.  She has cultivated a controversial organic gardening approach that delights environmentalist viewers and alarms chemical-using traditionalists, drawing swarms of protesters, mounds of nasty mail, and absolutely fabulous ratings.

But the bloom of success fades suddenly when the society maven Louise replaced violently turns on her, picking a fight in the studio, only to wind up dead--poisoned by pesticides--moments later.  Louise is suspect number one, and in trying to clear herself, she must grub up clues and root out the real
killer--but with the police and the murderer hot on her trail, she is more likely to be planted six feet under than to stop this deadly canker.

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