Supper Sleuths


By the Pricking of My Thumb...Something Wicked This Way Comes: Garden Mysteries

While rare poison from plants has always been a method of murder, the garden has mostly been used as a setting in mystery novels where characters trip over bodies in the roses or where the sleuth finds footprints in the pansies as evidence. Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple was an avid gardener, and Rex Stout’s Nero Wolf nursed his exotic orchids but the garden had little do with the plot or the actual murder until Ellis Peter’s Brother Cadfael series began in 1977 when the medieval gardener and herbalist made his first appearance in print. In the 1980s, many cozy mystery writers began to create mysteries around specialized themes like cooking and gardening. These mystery authors use the specialized knowledge of their sleuth as an integral part of how he/she solved his/her cases and his/her specific expertise helps him/her solve the crime.

John Sherwood began the Gardening sub genre with his Celia Grant series in 1984, and now there are many writers who have planted their own seeds of intrigue and watched them grow.

Credit for background & titles is due to NoveList: (Jacobs Merle, These Murderous Plants, http://novelst4.epnet.com 1/25/05); Reader's Advice.com's Gardening Mysteries; Des Plaines (IL) Public Library's Garden Variety Murder Mysteries; St. Charles (IL) Public Library's Digging for Clues: Mysteries in the Garden & Rooting Out Evil: Finding Mystery in the Garden; Skokie (IL) Public Library's Gruesome Gardens compiled by Ricki Nordmeyer, and Omaha (NE) Public Library's Mysterious Gardens. A very special thank you to Nanci Milone Hill for her title and compiling her last Supper Sleuths list.

The following is a list of titles by author. Whenever possible, the series is in order of publication date. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and please let us know if you feel that a title should be here. Please read one or more titles, and come prepared to discuss your impressions of them with the group.

AUTHOR DETECTIVE TITLE
Peter E.Abresch James P. Dandy Bloody Bonsai (1998)
Killing Thyme (1999)
Susan Wittig Albert China Bayles Thyme of Death. (1992)
Witches' Bane. (1993)
Hangman's Root. (1994)
Rosemary Remembered. (1995)
Rueful Death. (1996)
Love Lies Bleeding. (1997)
Chile Death. (1998)
Lavender Lies. (1999)
Mistletoe Man. (2000)
Bloodroot. (2001)
Indigo Dying. (2003)
Unthymely Death: and other garden mysteries. (2003)
A Dilly of a Death. (2004)
Dead Man's Bones. (2005)
Nancy Atherton Aunt Dimity Aunt Dimity and the Duke. (1994)
Richard Barth Margaret Binton Ragged Plot. (1981)
M.C.Beaton Agatha Raisin Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardner (1994)
J.S.Borthwick Sarah Deane Garden Plot (1997)
Dorothy Cannell Tessa Fields Down the Garden Path (1985)
Jill Churchill Jane Jeffry Mulch Ado About Nothing (2000)
A.Carman Clark Amy Creighton Maine Mulch Murder (2001)
K.C. Constantine Mario Balzic Man Who Liked Slow Tomatoes. (1982)
Carola Dunn Daisy Dalrymple Winter Garden Mystery (1995)
Kathy Lynn Emerson Lady Susanna Appleton Face Down in the Marrow-bone Pie (1997)
Face Down Upon a Herbal (1998)
Face Down Among the Winchester Geese (1999)
Face Down Beneath the Eleanor Cross (2000)
Face Down Under the Wych Elm (2000)
Face Down Before the Rebel Hooves (2001)
Face Down Across the Western Sea (2002)
Anthea Fraser Inspector David Webb Six Proud Walkers (1989)
Mary Freeman Rachel O'Connor Devil's Trumpet (1999)
Deadly Nightshade (1999)
Bleeding Heart (2000)
Garden View (2002)
Jacqueline Girdner Kate Jasper Murder My Deer (2000)
Caroline Graham Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby Killings at Badger's Drift (1987)
Joan Hadley
(AKA Joan Hess)		 Theo Bloomer Night-blooming Cereus (1986)
Karen Harper Elizabeth I Poyson Garden (1999)
Janice Harrison Bretta Solomon Roots of Murder (1999)
Murder Sets Seed (2000)
Lilies That Fester (2001)
Deadly Bouquet (2002)
Reap a Wicked Harvest (2004)
Muriel Resnik Jackson Merrie Lee Garden Club (1992)
Susan Kenney Roz Howard Garden of Malice (1983)
Graham Landrum Harriet Bushrow Garden Club Mystery (1998)
Elizabeth Lemarchand Tom Pollard &
Gregory Toye		 Suddenly While Gardening.(1978)
Change for the Worse.(1981)
Ngaio Marsh Roderick Alleyn Grave Mistake (1978)
Sujata Massey Rei Shimura Flower Master (1998)
Marcia Muller Sharon McCone There's Something About a Sunday (1989)
Ellis Peters
(AKA Edith Pargeter)		 Brother Cadfael Morbid Taste for Bones (1977)
One Corpse Too Many (1980)
Monks-Hood (1981)
Saint Peter's Fair (1981)
Leper of Saint Giles (1982)
Virgin in the Ice (1983)
Sanctuary Sparrow (1983)
Devil's Novice (1984)
Dead Man's Ransom (1985)
Pilgrim of Hate (1985)
Excellent Mystery (1985)
Raven in the Foregate (1986)
Rose Rent (1986)
Hermit of Eyton Forest (1988)
Confession of Brother Haluin (1989)
Rare Benedictine (1990)
Heretic's Apprentice (1990)
Potter's Field (1990)
Summer of the Danes (1991)
Holy Thief (1993)
Brother Cadfael's Penance (1994)
Sheila Pim Lucy Bext Common or Garden Crime (1945)
Brush With Death (1950)
Hive of Suspects (2001)
Cynthia Riggs Victoria Trumbull Deadly Nightshade (1999)
1st in series, for others, see Senior Sleuths.
Anne Ripley Louise Eldgridge Mulch (1994)
Death of a Garden Pest (1996)
Death of a Political Plant (1998)
Garden Tour Affair (1999)
Perennial Killer (2000)
Harvest of Murder (2001)
Christmas Garden Affair (2002)
Death at the Spring Plant Sale (2003)
Lora Roberts Liz Sullivan Murder Crops Up (1998)
Rebecca Rothenberg Claire Sharples Bulrush Murders (1991)
Dandelion Murders (1994)
Shy Tulips Murders (1996)
Tumbleweed Murders (2001)
John Sherwood Celia Grant Green Trigger Fingers (1984)
Botanist at Bay (1985)
Mantrap Garden (1986)
Flowers of Evil (1987)
Menacing Groves (1988)
Bouquet of Thorns (1989)
Sunflower Plot (1990)
Hanging Garden (1992)
Creeping Jenny (1993)
Bones Gather No Moss (1994)
Heather Webber Nina Quinn Hoe Lot of Trouble (2004)


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