The Curse of the Giant Hogweed

Canadian author Charlotte MacLeod wrote a mystery book of that title, featuring Pete Shandy, Professor Timothy Ames and Professor Stott going back in time to solve a mysteyr featuring giant hogweed. I always thought she made it up, but apparently it's true:

From the blog Infocult

Giant human-wounding plant invades Canada
A very large weed is invading Canada and attacking people. It's called heracleum mantegazzianum, or giant hogweed (you pick), and is on the move in Ontario. Like something out of a 1970s eco-horror movie, or Day of the Triffids, the Terrible H is spreading.


Size: maxes out at six meters. Yes, a twenty-foot-tall weed. Hence "giant" in the name.
Weapon: it oozes poison. The stuff's strong enough to burn flesh, or blind your eyes, even permanently.
Stealth: it can hide, and still get you.
"[exposure] could be inadvertent," [Jeff Muzzi, manager of forestry services for Renfrew County] said. "You might not even know it's here, [just] walk into it and happen to break a leaf. The next thing you know, you've got these nasty burns."

Growth: this anti-human weed is spreading energetically.
"It spreads primarily by seeds... [which] can be carried by vehicles, by people, by winds it could be a bird. It could be any reason at all and I think every plant will produce something to the tune of 500,000 seeds, so the spread potential is pretty big."
Yes, it is deemed invasive.

Canadians, you can only mutilate, kill, and ship so many people before you outrage nature herself!

The Peanut Butter Murders, by Corinne Holt Sawyer (1993)

The Peanut Butter Murders, by Corinne Holt Sawyer.

Backmatter:
The dead man was a mere fifty, too young too have much in common with the well-heeled oldsters at the beautiful CAmden-sur-Mer retirement community in southern CAlifornia. His death looks like an accident, but when those ever-alert senior sleuths Angela Benbow and Caledonia Wingate discover that he was courting one of their neighbors, they can't help hoping they'll luck into a nice murder investigation.

A second murder confirms their suspicions that a dangerous killer is on the loose. But between Angela's shameless curiosity and Caledonia's blitzkrieg, a mere murderer hasn't a chance. Unless he can eliminate them, too.

Opening paragraph

Caledonia Wingate threw her tremendous head back and laughed a laugh that Jack of beanstalk fame would have found ominously familiar. "I cannot imagine myself," she rumbled to Angela Benbow, her tiny friend and fellow resident in the retirement home of Camden-sur-Mer, "cutting up lettuce and poking it through the bars of a cage to feed some canary. Even if it's a blue canary--or whatever that ratty-looking thing is!"

Death on the River Walk, by Carolyn Hart (1999)

Carolyn Hart's heroine in this series of mysteries is Henrie O, doubtless a takeoff on the famous author of short stories with a twist, O. Henry.

Death on the River Walk, by Carolyn Hart (1999)

Backmatter:
Pulitzer Prize-winning ex-reporter Henrietta O'Dwyer Collins no longer chases hot stories all over the world, but murderous mysteries seem to find her. This time, a frantic phone call from an old and dear friend on the other side of the world sends Henrie O rushing to the fabled city of San Antion, (Texas) to check out the baffling disappearance of her friend's devoted granddaughter, Iris Chavez. Iris, employed at the Tesoros Gallery on SAn Antonio's famous River Walk, has suddenly dropped from sight without a word.

Soon Henrie O discovers that amidst the exquisite objects in the prestigious gallery and among the family members is hidden a dark secret--one Henrie O must uncover if she is to find Iris. Late one dark night on the River Walk, Henrie O sees a sprawled body...and realizes that treachery and disgrace lurk in the shadows of an old and respected business...and death awaits anyone daring to uncover the truth.

Opening paragraph

I glanced at the computer printout that rested on the passenger seat of the rental car, a casual picture of a grandmother and granddaughter, arms linked, faces aglow with laughter and love. The bright photograph had been scanned into a computer half a world awayand the resulting crisp picture that had issued from my daughter's computer was one of the small miracles that no one remarks in today's technological wonderland. The grandmother, Gina Wilson, was one of my oldest friends, a shining memory from the happiest years of my life. The granddaughter, Iris Chavez, was a child I'd come to know because she spent so much of her growing up time with Gina. Iris was near in age to my own granddaughter, Diana.

From Wikipedia:
Hart's Henrie O mysteries feature 70-something retired newswoman, Henrie O'Dwyer Collins, as she travels the country and the world, solving crimes that seem to follow her as she travels. Henrie gets by on her grit, tenacity, and sensible shoes.

Dead Man's Island (1993)
Scandal in Fair Haven (1994)
Death in Lovers' Lane (1997)
Death in Paradise (1998)
Death on the River Walk (1999)
Resort to Murder (2001)
Set Sail for Murder (2007)

Louisiana Hotshot, by Julie Smith (2001)

Louisiana Hotshot, by Julie Smith (2001)

If you're looking for mysteries that take place in New Orleans, Louisiana, check out the Talba Wallis/Baroness Pontalba series.

Here's the info from the jacket:

Edgar Award winner Julie Smith returns to the bewitching streets of New Orleans with the smartest, sassiest, hippest street detective ever-the Baroness Pontalba.

Meet the snazziest P.I. in the land. Not by accident does she roam America's jazziest city, New Orleans. By day she is Talba Wallis, smart, sassy, ebony, and a fledgling detective. By night she is the Baroness Pontalba, poet laureate of the city's smoky rooms, matron saint of her town's exotic and multi-colored cafe society.

Goaded into a day gig by her pushy mom, she finds herself employed by Eddie Valentino, a crusty old detective who thinks he doesn't like anyone young, female or black. He also doesn't realize his life is unravelling.

Taking up the slack, Talba is plunged into a world of fame, money and power run amok, hunting a man who seduces teenage black girls and may be making them disappear.

At the same time she is haunted by disturbing near-memories, but the more she pursues them, the more the roadblocks go up. Her forgotten past only emerges when violence enters her life-but not, she learns, for the first time.

Abut the author
Julie Smith is a former reporter and tbhe author of 15 mystery novels. New Orleans Mourning, the first in the Skip Langdon series, won the Edgar for best novel. Ms. Smith lives in the Faubourg Marigny section of New Orleans.

http://www.juiliesmithauthor.com

Liberty Falling, by Nevada Barr (1999)

Liberty Falling, by Nevada Barr, was published in 1999.

Each of Barr's books takes place in some national park... on this occasion, the park is the Ellis Island National Monument - the island on which stands the Statue of Liberty, and the buildings that greeted legal immigrants during the 1920s.

Anna's sister, Molly, is deathly ill in a New York hospital, and Anna Pigeon has come to be with her, and in her spare time, to keep her sanity, she explores Liberty Island, and, as usual, comes across murder...and this time, a plot that could change America forever.

Here's the list of Nevada Barr books and the National Parks in which they take place:

Track of the Cat --Guadalupe Mountains National Park --1993
A Superior Death --Isle Royale National Park --1994
Ill Wind --Mesa Verde --National Park --1995
Firestorm --Lassen Volcanic National Park --1996
Endangered Species --Cumberland Island National Seashore --1997
Blind Descent --Carlsbad Caverns National Park --1998
Liberty Falling --Statue of Liberty National Monument --1999
Deep South --Natchez Trace Parkway --2000
Blood Lure -- Glacier National Park --2001
Hunting Season --Natchez Trace Parkway --February 2002
Flashback --Dry Tortugas National Park --February 2003
High Country --Yosemite National Park --February 2004
Hard Truth --Rocky Mountain National Park --March 2005
Winter Study --Isle Royale National Park --April 2008
Borderline --Big Bend National Park --April 2009
Burn New Orleans --Jazz National Historical Park August 2010

Octagon House, by Phoebe Atwood Taylor (1937)

(McElroy House in San Francisco, 1861)

Phoebe Atwood Taylor, writing in the 1930s and 1940s, is the creator of the "hayseed" sleuth, or the "codfish Sherlock," Asey Mayo. Asey does most of his sleuthing on Cape Cod.

What is an Octagon House?

Octagon houses were a unique house style briefly popular in the 1850s in the United States and Canada. They are characterised by an octagonal (eight-sided) plan, and often feature a flat roof and a veranda all round. Their unusual shape and appearance, quite different from the ornate pitched-roof houses typical of the period, can generally be traced to the influence of one man, amateur architect and lifestyle pundit Orson Squire Fowler. Although there are other octagonal houses worldwide, the term octagon house usually refers specifically to octagonal houses built in North America during this period, and up to the turn of the century.

Octagon House was written in 1937 and is the 11th book in the series. The book has some interesting features. The first chapter starts out in the new WPA library - one of Franklin D. Roosevelt's ideas to help Americans out of the Depression was to create work - the Works Project Administration or WPA, and one of these was to paint murals in post offices across the land.

The lead character has spent all her life hunting for ambergris (a whale discharge that was much used in making perfumes and was extremely valuable). When she finally finds some..enough to make her fortune, it is so waterlogged that she can't lift it out of the surf. Along comes her hated sister, who agrees to help her...for a price.



Asey Mayo books
The Cape Cod Mystery - 1931
Death Lights a Candle - 1932
The Mystery of the Cape Cod Players - 1933
The Mystery of the Cape Cod Tavern - 1934
Sandbar Sinister - 1934
Deathblow Hill - 1935
The Tinkling Symbol - 1935
The Crimson Patch - 1936
Out of Order - 1936
Figure Away - 1937
Octagon House - 1937
The Annulet of Gilt - 1938
Banbury Bog - 1938
Spring Harrowing - 1939
The Criminal C.O.D. - 1940
The Deadly Sunshade - 1940
The Perennial Boarder - 1941
The Six Iron Spiders - 1942
Three Plots for Asey Mayo (novelets) - 1942
Going, Going, Gone - 1943
Proof of the Pudding - 1943
The Asey Mayo Trio (novelets) - 1946
Punch with Care - 1946
Diplomatic Corpse - 1951

The Ironclad Alibi, by Michael Kilian (2002)

The Ironclad Alibi, by Michael Kilian, is a Harrison Raines Civil War mystery. It was published by Berkley Prime Crime in 2002.

Harrison Raines appears in the following mysteries:
A Killing at Ball's Bluff
Murder at Mabassas
A Grave at Glorieta

Here's the backmatter for The Ironclad Alibi

U.S. Federal Agent Harrison Raines' latest mission is to investigate "The Monster" - the Confederate Navy's first ironclad ship - in his old home town of Richmond, Virginia. Through a chance encounter with his first love, Bella Mills, Harry learns that her husband is in charge of the ship's restoration. But when Bella is murdered, Harry's friend, ex-slave Caesar Augustus, is arrested for the crime. Now Harry must find the real killer, rescue Caesar, and inform the Union about the new Confederate menace.