Lilies That Fester
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
When Flower Shop owner Bretta Solomon leaves her hometown of River City, Missouri, and heads for a florist convention in Branson, she's surprised to find a letter from Vincent and Mabel McDuffy slipped under her hotel room door, begging for help. The McDuffys seem to know of Bretta's success as an amateur sleuth around River City, and that, coupled with their admiration for Bretta's late husband, a police officer, has inspired them to ask Bretta to find out what happened to their daughter, who died of a heart attack a few months ago.
The trouble is, Bretta can't find the McDuffys-after leaving her several messages at the hotel, they seem to have vanished. And although she's curious to track them down and find out exactly what they want her to do, she's got her hands full already running the design contest at the annual florist convention, coping with back-stabbing competitors and suspicious colleagues.
Once again, Janis Harrison's likable and enterprising sleuth, Bretta Solomon, unearths a murderer in the unlikeliest of places. Combining a traditional puzzle with a delightful gardening backdrop, this charming mystery distinguishes a series that continues to bloom.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The third mystery to feature Missouri florist Bretta Solomon, widow of Deputy Sheriff Carl Solomon, proves a less fruitful offering than its predecessors (Roots of Murder and Murder Sets Seed). Bretta travels to nearby Branson, a small Ozarks town, to attend the first Show-Me Floral Designers' Competition and Conference. After checking in at her hotel, she finds a letter from some friends of Carl's, Vincent and Mabel McDuffy, stuck under her door, asking her to "right a terrible wrong." She tries to contact the McDuffys, but the couple has disappeared and a newspaper article leads her to think they may be murder victims. Add to this mystery spiteful attacks on competition contestants, and the situation is ripe for Bretta to jump in and investigate. What does the attractive man with the butterfly group have to do with all this? And why does he, a guest at the hotel, answer the phone at a local business? Though the plot is basically sound, Bretta lurches willy-nilly from episode to episode without continuity or logic, occasionally guided by the voice of her late husband, who still speaks to her in moments of stress. There's a large cast of secondary characters, stereotypical and tiresome, about whom it's difficult to get concerned. Harrison brings off a surprise ending with lan, but the story has already gone to seed.
