Summer Garden Murder

The star of public television's top garden show, Louise Eldridge is something of a celebrity. But when a dead body is planted in her backyard, she's in for notoriety of a different kind. . . Summer is the season for disquiet in Louise's Sylvan Valley cul de sac, and the tradition continues when an uninvited guest crashes a neighborhood soiree. Five years ago, Louise identified Peter Hoffman as the "mulch murderer." Now he's been released from a Virginia state mental institution. Leaving the party doesn't put enough distance between Louise and Hoffman, who has a thing or two to say to her—and actually has the nerve to follow her home to air his grievances. Shaken by the incident, Louise and family decide to take a little R&R at the beach in the hope that Hoffman will have moved on by the time they return. When they get back from vacation, Hoffman's moved on all right—but not in quite the way Louise had hoped. He's been missing for seven days, and Louise is the one who finds him. . .buried beneath her native azalea patch. Things go from bad to worse once the police learn that someone saw Louise planting one of the nights she was supposed to be out of town. With suspicion buzzing around her, she starts doing some snooping among her friendly—and not-so-friendly-neighbors, including high-powered attorney Mike Cunningham, who may have had a shady business deal going with Hoffman; Hilde, an apprentice gardener with something to hide; and Hoffman's own widow, whose relationship with her husband wasn't exactly a bed of roses. But before Louise can make any serious headway, another murder victim turns up—felled by a garden claw covered in Louise's fingerprints. Now, with more than just her television career in jeopardy, Louise will have to dig up some serious clues to bring a killer to light—before another person winds up as fertilizer. . .

In this memoir-turned-cookbook, Alice B. Toklas describes her life with partner Gertrude Stein and their famed Paris salon, which entertained the great avant-garde and literary figures of their day. With dry wit and characteristic understatement Toklas ponders the ethics of killing a carp in her kitchen before stuffing it with chestnuts; decorating a fish to amuse Picasso at lunch; and travelling across France during the First World War in an old delivery truck, gathering local recipes along the way. She includes a friend's playful recipe for 'Haschiche Fudge', which promises 'brilliant storms of laughter and ecstatic reveries', much like her book.

Chaos erupts at Andrea's baby shower, meanwhile Gloria's sister, Liz, becomes a murder suspect while housesitting for the summer. "If you like clean and humorous cozy mysteries that keep you guessing until the end, you'll love Hope Callaghan books!" "Murder on Summer Lane" is Book 22 in the Garden Girls Cozy Mysteries Series. BONUS - RECIPE INCLUDED! Read This Cozy Mystery FREE With Kindle Unlimited! --------------------------------- The Garden Girls have planned the perfect baby shower for Andrea and her husband, Brian. The decorations are in place, the delicious dishes lovingly prepared by the friends and nearly half the town of Belhaven has been invited to join in the joyous occasion, but there's trouble on the horizon. As if dealing with the unexpected wrench in their perfectly laid party plans isn't enough, Liz, Gloria's sister, has arrived for the summer, and invited the friends to stop by for a tour of her swanky new summer digs.The friends tour the beautiful home and grounds, and Gloria can't believe her sister's good fortune. It seems almost to be too good to be true.But all is not perfect in Liz's slice of paradise. She hasn't even unpacked her bags when the women make an unsettling discovery, setting Liz up as the prime suspect for a murder investigation. With a killer on the loose, will Gloria and the Garden Girls convince Liz to give up her dream summer home long enough to clear her name and keep her from becoming the next victim?

A gripping true story of murder and the fight for civil rights and social justice in 1960s Mississppi. On June 21, 1964, three young men were killed by the Ku Klux Klan for trying to help black Americans vote as part of the 1964 Fredom Summer registration effort in Mississippi. The disappearance and brutal murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner caused a national uproar and was one of the most significant events of the civil rights movement.The Freedom Summer Murders tells the tragic story of these brave men, the crime that resulted in their untimely deaths, and the relentless forty-one-year pursuit of a conviction. It is the story of idealistic and courageous young people who wanted to change their county for the better. It is the story of black and white. And ultimately, it is the story of our nation's endless struggle to close the gap between what is and what should be.

Literary chef Tish Tarragon is preparing her English Secret Garden-themed luncheon for Coleton Creek's annual garden club awards, but two days before the event one of the competitors is found dead in his pristine garden. After hearing that he was the favourite to win the top prize this year, Tish can't help being drawn into the investigation...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A modern classic of true crime, set in a most beguiling Southern city—now in a 30th anniversary edition with a new afterword by the author “Elegant and wicked . . . might be the first true-crime book that makes the reader want to book a bed and breakfast for an extended weekend at the scene of the crime.”—The New York Times Book Review Shots rang out in Savannah’s grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. In this sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative, John Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case. It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman’s Card Club; the turbulent young gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the “soul of pampered self-absorption”; the uproariously funny drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young people dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a sublime and seductive reading experience.

Who killed Sally Kahn? There hasn't been a murder in 15 years in tranquil, affluent Hardington, Massachusetts. But someone pushed a moderately wealthy 65-year-old widow down her basement stairs, and then tried to make it look like an accident. Two people will work - together and independently - to find the murderer. John Flynn, a retired Boston Police Department detective with an outstanding record, will lead the official investigation. He will solve the murder despite the best efforts of Hardington's police chief, who cannot abide the idea of a murderer on the loose in his bucolic town and so who arrests the first likely suspect. Liz Phillips has a life centered on her garden and her garden club. Sally Kahn was one of her best friends and it is Liz who found the body. But Liz is a lonely woman, her daughter married and living far away, and her husband constantly on the road. Liz will help solve the murder by using intuition, asking questions, and knowing her town. Their quest to find Sally Kahn's killer will lead Liz Phillips and Detective John Flynn into an unfamiliar world of email inboxes and wireless Internet routers, hazardous waste disposal and the economics of tearing down houses to build 'McMansions'. Their search will also take them through an emotional landscape of adultery and the simmering resentment between 'townies' and the new-money affluent.

One of The Chicago Tribune's Best Reads of 2011 One of Dublin's most powerful men meets a violent end— and an acknowledged master of crime fiction delivers his most gripping novel yet On a sweltering summer afternoon, newspaper tycoon Richard Jewell—known to his many enemies as Diamond Dick—is discovered with his head blown off by a shotgun blast. But is it suicide or murder? For help with the investigation, Detective Inspector Hackett calls in his old friend Quirke, who has unusual access to Dublin's elite. Jewell's coolly elegant French wife, Françoise, seems less than shocked by her husband's death. But Dannie, Jewell's high-strung sister, is devastated, and Quirke is surprised to learn that in her grief she has turned to an unexpected friend: David Sinclair, Quirke's ambitious assistant in the pathology lab at the Hospital of the Holy Family. Further, Sinclair has been seeing Quirke's fractious daughter Phoebe, and an unlikely romance is blossoming between the two. As a record heat wave envelops the city and the secret deals underpinning Diamond Dick's empire begin to be revealed, Quirke and Hackett find themselves caught up in a dark web of intrigue and violence that threatens to end in disaster. Tightly plotted and gorgeously written, A Death in Summer proves to the brilliant but sometimes reckless Quirke that in a city where old money and the right bloodlines rule, he is by no means safe from mortal danger.

In this holiday yarn from the USA Today bestselling author of A Finely Knit Murder, all Izzy Chambers Perry wants for Christmas is to keep her brother out of jail.... In Sea Harbor, the holidays mean cozy fires, festive carols, and soft skeins of yarn waiting to become hats and sweaters and scarves. And this year, Izzy and the other Seaside Knitters are also knitting tiny ornaments to decorate a tree for the first annual tree-trimming contest. Their holiday cheer is multiplied when Izzy’s younger brother, Charlie Chambers, unexpectedly arrives to volunteer at a local clinic. He brings with him outspoken hitchhiker Amber Hanson, who is returning to Sea Harbor to claim an inheritance. She quickly reacquaints herself with the area—and forms an unlikely friendship with Charlie. But their bond is shattered when her body is found beneath the undecorated trees on the Harbor Green. Charlie is a suspect in the murder, so Izzy and her fellow Knitters step in to uncover the truth. Their journey takes them into Charlie’s past and tests their fierce love for him. But it’s only by peeling away long-buried secrets that they can hope to restore joy to the season and enjoy the shining lights of the newly decorated trees....

Bea Rivers' new job at Shandley Gardens seems to be idyllic; a stimulating career at a desert garden full of botanical wonders. But a slow rot has spread within Shandley Gardens as financial woes add stress to the small board of directors, putting Bea's job at risk. When one of the Gardens' founders, Liz Shandley, is killed in what appears to be a tragic accident, the immediate worry is the survival of the Gardens. But then the police determine that Liz was murdered, and suddenly Bea's job is less than idyllic. The tangled web of relationships is almost as confusing as the enigmatic botanical clues someone keeps dropping. Bea struggles to balance her life as a committed single parent dating a struggling writer while she's drawn further into the investigation of Liz's death. As Bea tries to decipher the strange clues to find the murderer, she uncovers deep secrets and surprises among the staff and board that will forever change the Gardens.