A Botanist at Bay, by John Sherwood (1985)

A Botanist at Bay, by John Sherwood. 1985

TOPICS: Location - New Zealand. Detective - amateur female. Topic: botany


Celia Grant, botanist and amateur sleuth, is on her way to New Zealand, where her daughter is about to have a baby.

She also plans, at the request of her friend the Duchess Hermione, to look for Uncle Bertie -- Lord Albert Melton -- whose strange disappearance is made even more puzzling by his photos of some very rare plants and a very naked redhead.

Upon her arrival, Celia learns that the redhead is Rosie Murphy, a radical member of New Zealand's Parliament, and a leader of an environmentalist battle against a dam that would endanger certain rare wild plants. Trouble is that Celia and her new friend, fellow botanist Tom MacRae, are certain those plants -- the very ones found in Uncle Bertie's photos -- aren't wild, aren't endangered, and were obviously recently transplanted at the proposed dam site!

Suddenly Rosie Murphy is murdured, and Celia Grant is the prime suspect! Can Celia combine her horticultural and investigative skills to learn the truth about the plants, find Uncle Bertie, and clear her name?

Celia Grant
1. Green Trigger Fingers (1984)
2. A Botanist at Bay (1985)
3. The Mantrap Garden (1986)
4. Flowers of Evil (1987)
5. Menacing Groves (1988)
6. A Bouquet of Thorns (1989)
7. The Sunflower Plot (1990)
8. The Hanging Garden (1992)
9. Creeping Jenny (1993)
10. Bones Gather No Moss (1994)
11. Shady Borders (1996)

The Marble Orchard, by William F. Nolan (1996)

The Marble Orchard, by William F. Nolan (1996)

TOPICS: Location: East Los Angeles, Detectives: real person as detective, real people as characters. Time period: the past (1930s)

The year is 1936, and Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Erle Stanley Gardner have taken to solving crimes as amateur detectives. As narrated by Chandler, their latest adventure begins in East Los Angeles, with the discovery of what is apparently the ritual suicide of his wife's former husband in a Chinese cemetery - but was it really suicide?

Following a trail of clues from the coastal splendors of the William Randolph Hearst castle to the rococo Victorian mansions of Bunker Hill, the trio of sleuths are helped -- and hindered -- by an odd assortment of characters like the mysterious screen star known as the Vampire Queen, a missing sister who prefers to stay missing, and an ex-stage actor with a penchant for using his fists, and by such real-life personalities as Shirley Temple, Charlie Chaplin, Hedda Hopper and Orson Welles.

The Marble Orchard is a complex, colorful, and ultimately dangeorus adventure - a richly textured thriller that also celebrates the joys of love and marriage between Chandler and his exceptional wife, Cissy.

The Black Mask Boys Series
The Black Mask Murders (1994) - narrated by Dashiell Hammett
The Marble Orchard (1996) - narrated by Raymond Chandler
Sharks Never Sleep (1998) - narrated by Erle Stanley Gardner

Thus Was Adonis Murdered, by Sarah Caudwell (1981)

Sarah Caudwell (1939 – 2000) was a British barrister and writer of detective stories.

"She is best known for a series of four murder stories written between 1980 and 1999, centred around the lives of a group of young barristers practicing in Lincoln’s Inn and narrated by a Hilary Tamar, a Professor of Medieval Law (gender unknown), who also acts as detective."

For American readers, Sarah Caudwell may be an aquired taste. As her Wikipedia entry states, "The books have a self-consciously literary style, including many references to the classics and other subjects of higher learning."...and "Professor Tamar is frequently physically removed from the action and is kept informed by a series of improbably long letters and telexes."

I don't know if I'd call them "improbably" long...her characters are British, after all, but today's modern readers, who communicate via internet and who on many occasions have said proudly that they can't read more than a paragraph of an email or message board message without becoming bored, may find the style unreadable.

I love it. That is Sarah Caudwell's schtick, that the action takes place via letters, which Hilary (and the other characters not involved in the action) read, and react to.

Of all her books, Thus Was Adonis Murdered is my favorite, The Sybil in her Grave my least favorite, because of the nature of the book, but I'll get to that when I present it here.

Backmatter:
For young barrister Julia Larwood, it was to be a vacation in search of eros, in flight from the tax man... An Art Lover's Holiday to Italy. Reduced to near penury by the Inland Revenue, Julia could hardly afford such a luxury, but she'd be in hock to the Revenue either way, so why not? Poor, hapless, incurably sentimental Julia. How could she know that the ravishing young ARt Lover for whom she conceived a fatal passion was himself an employee of Inland Revenue? Or that her hard-won night of passion would end in murder - with her inscribed copy of this year's Finance Act lying a few feet from the corpse...

Opening paragraphs
Scholarship asks, thank God, no recompense but Truth. It is not for the sake of material reward that she (Scolarship) pursues her (Truth) through the undergrowth of Ignorance, shining on Obscurity the bright torch of Reason and clearing aside the tangled thorns of Error with the keen secaturs of Intellect. Nor is it for the sake of public glory and the applause of the multitude: the scholar is indifferent to vulgar acclain. Nor is it even in the hope that those few intimate friends who have observed art first hand the labor of the chase will mark with a word or two of discerninbg congratulation its eventual achievement. Which is very fortunate, because they don't.

Hilary Tamar Books
Thus Was Adonis Murdered (1981)
The Shortest Way to Hades (1985)
The Sirens Sang of Murder (1989)
The Sibyl in Her Grave (2000)

Murder, My Suite, by Mary Daheim (1995)

Murder, My Suite, by Mary Daheim, "A bed and breakfast mystery", 1995

Truth to tell, I don't like Daheim's "Bed-and-breakfast" mysteries. Amateur detective Judith's cousin calls her coz all the time, an affectation that grates on my nerves. In addition, Judith's mother lives with her, and is a mean old biddy who doesn't like Judith's second husband, so we get a lot of verbal abuse. I just want to slap the old woman!

Nevertheless, it's definitely a "cozy." And there are a lot of books in the series so someone must like them...

Backmatter
Gossip columnist Dagmar Delacroix Chatsworth and her yappy lapdog Rover's recent stay at the hillside Manor left hostess Judith McMonigle Flynn's nerves, and best bed linens, in tatters. So Judith joins Cousin Renie for some well-earned off-season R&R at Canada's famous Bugler Ski Resort-only to discover with horror that the swanky getaway is the next stop on destestble Dagmar's itinerary. But it seems the cousins aren't the only guests with serious grudges against the dirt-disher and her malicious mutt.. And when one of the despised lady's entourage is murdered on the snowless slopes, Judith sets out to corner a killer-before more hapless hangers-on discover that Dagmar's company can be even more poisonous than her pen.

Opening paras
Judith Grover McMonigle Flynn stared in horror at the slashed beige drapes, the shredded down comforter,, and the tattered petit-point chair. Hillside Manor's choice bedroom was a shamble. Judith understood why her current guest had been thrown out of the Cascadia Hotel.

Detection Unlimited, by Georgette Heyer (1953)

Georgette Heyer was (and probably still is) a very popular writer of Regency romances. She also wrote 8 detectives stories, most of which I enjoy very much. Detection Unlimited is not one of my favorites (and the title is sooo undescriptive), but it's still a good mystery for all that.

Detection Unlimited, by Georgette Heyer. 1953

Backmatter:
It was a hot June evening, and young Haswell had just motored the lovely Abby Dearham back from Thornden's social event of the week. All of the vollage uppercrust had come to Haswell's tennis party-the Squire, the Vicar, the sharp-tongued heir to five centuries of local real estate. But Sampson Warrenby had declined, and no one was sorry.

Why this charmless social climber was invited was beond Abby. Had he some sinister hold on the social leaders of Thornden?

All joking was cut short when a wild-eyed girl came running down the lane. For it was Warrenby's niece, announcing he was dead.

First paras
Mr. Thaddeus Drybeck, stepping from the neat gravel drive leading from his house on to the road,found his further progress challenged, and indeed, impeded, by the sudden onrush of several Pekinese dogs, who bounced and barked asthmatically at his feet. Repressing a desire to sweep them from his path with the tennis racquet he was carrying, he used this instead to guard his ankles, for one of Mrs. Midgeholme's Pekes was known to bite.

"Shoo!" said Drybeck testily. "Get away!"

The Pekes, maddened to frenzy by this form of address, bounced and barked more than ever; and one of them made a dart at Mr. Drybeck's racquet.

Heyer's Mysteries
Footsteps in the Dark (1932)
Why Shoot a Butler? (1933)
The Unfinished Clue (1934)
Death in the Stocks (1935)
Behold, Here's Poison (1936)
They Found Him Dead (1937)
A Blunt Instrument (1938)
No Wind of Blame (1939)
Envious Casca (1941)
Penhallow (1942)
Duplicate Death (1951)
Detection Unlimited (1953)

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!"