The Garden Tour Affair: A Gardening Mystery

A historic and picturesque country inn; a weekend with impeccably respectable guests; an impending garden tour--as this brisk and thickly plotted mystery demonstrates, these elements add up to a perfect setting for a murder. Louise Eldridge, host of the PBS show Gardening with Nature, returns for her fourth adventure (after Death of a Political Plant, Forecasts, Feb. 23). She and her family (a feisty daughter; a supportive husband) set out for a weekend of work and relaxation, staying at the Litchfield Falls Inn while she films her program. When one of the inn's guests, a renowned professor of botany who specializes in plant engineering, dies after a fall from a cliff, it looks like an accident. But when another hotel guest, a quietly deferential young wife, is found dead at the base of a waterfall, the Connecticut State Police become interested. Louise, who digs deeply into both gardens and investigations, rounds up her family and friends to pry. There's no lack of suspects--possible motives range from the theft of secret botanical research to risky romantic entanglements--and myriad clever hotel guests keep the waters suitably murky. The ultimate clue comes from--where else?--a garden, and as this enjoyable story (laced with informative gardening lectures) comes to a close, the reader will be gratified to know that Ripley has sown the seeds for her next tale. (Jan.)