Sunday Salon: It's Been a Month...

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The summer is winding down and it has been a hectic one ever since it started. This is my first Sunday Salon in a month!

I started the Steig Larsson trilogy, reviewed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, re-read The Girl Who Played with Fire (Vintage)  and finished The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. (The second book in the trilogy and an ARC of the third were sent to me by the publisher some time ago. I went out and bought the first book to have all three).

All the books are top notch thrillers. The main character in the books, Lisbeth Salander, is someone we root for - she refuses to be a recurring victim of anyone or any system. Once she becomes an adult and can stand up for herself, once is enough, and then she fights back - spectacularly. I only wish Larsson were alive to enjoy the success of his books.

Also reviewed Extinction - the Ultimate Holocaust, a sci-fi novel by Dan Ailey, and wrote a  couple of short verses for Magpie Tales, hosted by Willow.

On Monday, I'll post two sentences for a 140-character response to a photo prompt, a meme called Microfiction Monday, hosted by Stony River. It's been fun writing poetry or something short using photo prompts provided by the hosts.


Finished an enjoyable, light mystery set in Charlotte, North Carolina, A Corpse for Yew (A Peggy Lee Garden Mystery) written by Joyce and Jim Lavene. I plan to get others in the series when I return the book to the library. The book will be a fun read as long as you are not too fussy about incidentals such as setting and a crime scene not described very well. The interesting characters and the garden/plant information more than make up for that however.
That's all I did the past week or two. What books have you finished?

© Harvee Lau, Book Bird Dog

 

Book Review: Trail of the Wild Rose by Anthony Eglin

The Trail of the Wild Rose: An English Garden Mystery by Anthony Eglin
Published April 14, 2009; Minotaur
Genre: mystery

There is a lot to like about this mystery by Anthony Eglin. In The Trail of the Wild Rose, plant lovers will like Eglin's discourses on the history of the modern rose; travelers will like the descriptions of gardens around England, and mystery lovers will like the elaborate plot.

The plot has plant hunters mysteriously dying off, the first during an expedition in the mountains of Yunnan, China, and the second in a hit and run four years later. Will similar "accidents" happen to the third, fourth, and fifth persons who were on the plant expedition with the first victim? What is behind the deaths, and does it have any relation to their plant gathering in China?

The plot has lots of red herrings, false leads, and more than a few culprits who go out of their way to obscure the truth. Readers will find the main character, retired botanist and teacher Lawrence Kingston, very British and quite charming as he goes about sifting out facts, smelling the roses, and helping the police come up with solutions. I enjoyed the novel for the detailed history on roses and their propagation,and for the descriptions of historic places Kingston visits - Oxford, Dorset, Cornwall, London, and Wales.

I thought the plot in this book better than the previous one in the series, The Water Lily Cross, which had a plot that was unbelievably close to sci fi - a waterlily hybrid that desalinates sea water, turning it into fresh water over time! Wouldn't that be a prize piece of genetic engineering if it were true!

Garden Mysteries, a list

At the suggestion of a friend and loyal blog reader, I am putting together a list of mystery books I recommend for winter reading.

It's called my Cocooning Book List --- for those who would rather stay indoors and read rather than go downhill skiing, snowboarding, ice skating, cross country skiing, sledding, tobogganing, or walking around in the parks.

Okay, so maybe going out and exercising is better... sometimes. However, you may also enjoy these.

1. Ann Ripley, Death of a Political Plant and Mulch, with excellent gardening tips.

2. Mary Freeman, Deadly Nightshade and Bleeding Heart, gardening mystery

3. John Sherwood, Creeping Jenny and The Hanging Garden, horticulturalist mysteries set in England

4. Michelle Wan, The Deadly Slipper < and The Orchid Shroud are set in the Dordogne region of France and the world of exotic orchids.

5. Susan Orleans, The Orchid Thief, a non-fiction book.
6. Frank Kingston Ward, In the Land of the Blue Poppies, non-fiction book on searching for plants in the Himalayas.

7. Janis Harrison, Deadly Bouquet, gardening mystery

8. Joyce and Jim Lavene, Fruit of the Poisoned Tree , garden mystery

9. Audrey Stallsmith, Rosemary for Remembrance, a Thyme Will Tell mystery. Enjoyable mystery by a master gardener

My favorite garden mystery writer is Ann Ripley, not only for her excellent plots but also for her gardening tips and suggestions. I also recommend John Sherwood.

Time to Blog

Now reading the novel, Grave Imports by Eric Stone, about the smuggling of priceless cultural artifacts out of Cambodia. Witty dialogue, good observation of people and place. Wicked satire of the British expat.

Just finished The Accidental Florist by Jill Churchill, which is not about a florist at all, but about mothers-in-law that the author has a good time bashing. I was not sympathetic, having recently become a mother-in-law myself.

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If it didn't take so much time, I'd add to my blog more often. It takes time from chores, housework, reading, writing, talking, visiting, traveling, taking care of the dog, procrastinating, meditating, and even sleeping.

There are so many steps to getting pictures from my camera onto the computer and then onto the blog! A sometimes daunting process!

My hat's off to those of you who blog religiously every day or every other day. And to those you who have figured out how to manipulate your templates to look original and eye catching.

Where do you get the time!

Garden Mysteries Revisited

Found a list of mystery books with a Garden theme that I had made some time ago after scrolling through the web. Most I haven't read, but they might be worth a look.

*Winter Garden Mystery by Carola Dunn

*The Garden Club Mystery by Graham Gordon Landrum

*The Hanging Garden by John Sherwood (have read most of his books and recommend them).

*Three Dirty Women and the Garden of Death by Julie Wray Herman

*Garden View by May Freeman

*Deadly Garden Tour by Kathleen Gregory Klein

*Murder in the Garden by Veronica Heley

*Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama

More Garden Mystery

I have just begun the third of Anthony Eglin's English Garden Mysteries, The Water Lily Cross. As in his first book, The Blue Rose, this latest novel focuses on the consequences of creating a hybrid plant or flower that is so unusual, one of a kind, that its high value poses a personal risk to its breeder or owner.

In the Water Lily Cross, a friend of retired botany professor Lawrence Kingston mysteriously disappears on his way to a conference on global warming. Kingston finds clues left by his friend about a new water lily hybrid that can absorb salt and thus desalinate any salt water it is planted in. The implications of such a discovery are mind boggling, to say the least. Eglin lists other plants that actually do remove minerals or pollutants from soil and water. The water lily in this book is, however, purely fictional.

The second in the Eglin mystery series, The Lost Gardens, I have yet to read. As The Blue Rose won France's Prix Arsene Lupin Award for best mystery novel of 2006, I' m betting his second novel is also good.

For a review of Eglin's 2009 garden mystery, see The Trail of the Wild Rose: An English Garden Mystery

Garden mysteries, a list

Now that the snow has just about melted and spring is finally here, women (and men) can happily turn their thoughts to .... the garden, of course.

Armchair gardners who would rather read about gardens than toil in one, however, can put themselves into imaginary gardens by reading the following cozies that blend horticulture and landscaping with a bit of mystery.

There is The Lost Gardens (English gardening mystery) by Anthony Eglin, Death in the Orchid Garden by Ann Ripley, and Deadly Nightshade by Mary Freeman.

My favorite garden mystery writer is Ann Ripley, who sprinkles her early books with tips on plants and landscaping in the same way that author Diane Mott Davidson sprinkles her food catering mysteries with recipes. Their protaganists work hard at what they do - digging, planting, mulching or cooking, baking, and carting trays and platters of food around.

Ripley has her main character working hardest in Mulch, when she goes out to collect bags and bags of raked up leaves that all her neighbors have set out on the curb at night for garbage pick. She wants to add the leaves to the mulch in her wooded back yard, you see. This gets her into some big trouble, but in a way you couldn't forsee.

All the garden work you read about in Ripley's books will either make you tired or motivate you to start digging in your own backyard to plant bamboo or start a water garden.

Other gardening mysteries I have just discovered are Michelle Wan's Deadly Slipper and The Orchid Shroud, and Heather Webber's Digging Up Trouble, not to mention J.S. Borthwick's The Garden Plot, plus A Deadly Bouquet by Janis Harrison.

I hope to enjoy some pleasant spring gardening... I mean, spring reading.

Let me add Anthony Eglin's most recent gardening mystery: see a review of The Trail of the Wild Rose: An English Gardening Mystery