Roots of Murder
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The Flower Shop in River City, MO, is Bretta Solomon's whole life. Widowed more than a year ago when her cop husband had a heart attack, Bretta has thrown herself into her florist's business and her place in this small rural Midwestern community. And her diet--she's lost a lot of weight in the intervening year. If only she could shed her grief in the same way.
When Bretta reads in the newspaper that Isaac Miller, an Amish farmer who supplied some of her most beautiful flowers, has died under mysterious circumstances, she's shocked and saddened. But her shock turns to curiosity when Isaac's brother, Evan, a friend of hers since his family bought her parents' farm in neighboring Woodgrove, calls and asks her to help him find out more about his brother's death.
What Bretta finds when she begins looking into Isaac's murder--for that's what it was--is a complicated web of mistrust and suspicion both inside and around the Amish community. The sheriff suspects Evan, Evan suspects the neighbors, and Bretta finds her florist competitors unnaturally interested in Isaac's garden.
Bretta's talent for digging around is both her blessing and her curse. Roots of Murder is the first novel in Janis Harrison's Bretta Solomon Gardening Mysteries--a charming cozy mystery and an atmospheric story about small-town life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A genial balance of gardening and murder, Harrison's debut introduces River City, Mo., flower-shop owner Bretta Solomon. When Bretta is contacted by a local Amish man, Evan Miller, about his brother's unexpected death, she calls on the skills she honed with her recently deceased cop husband. Evan's brother, Isaac, was the best local flower grower, and his blooms were always in demand. Lately, Isaac had been poring over books and propagating chrysanthemums, nothing that should have resulted in his murder. With little to go on, Bretta decides to meet with those involved in the local flower trade. She discovers a greedy trucker who delivered Isaac's flowers and a peculiar broker who sold them to the shops. She is perplexed by Isaac's neighbors--one hates the Amish community, another has a wayward goat that destroyed much of their crop. As she sleuths, Bretta meets the newly elected Amish bishop, who disapproved of Isaac's use of his fertile field to grow flowers instead of wheat. All the while, Bretta also stews over the tragic death of three teenagers who drove off a dangerous curve near the Amish property. Knotting these disparate ends together, Harrison gives readers a winning look at what promises to be an intriguing cozy series marked by quick pacing, engaging characters and a touch of romance.
