Author(s): MARTA MCDOWELL

General/Other

With their deadly plants, razor-sharp shears, shady corners, and ready-made burial sites, gardens make an ideal scene for the perfect murder. But the outsize influence that gardens and gardening have had on the mystery genre has been underappreciated. Now, Marta McDowell, a writer and gardener with a near-encyclopedic knowledge of the genre, illuminates the many ways in which our greatest mystery writers, from Edgar Allen Poe to authors on today's bestseller lists, have found inspiration in the sinister side of gardens. From the cozy to the hardboiled, the literary to the pulp, and the classic to the contemporary, Gardening Can Be Murder is the first book to explore the mystery genre's many surprising horticultural connections. Meet plant-obsessed detectives and spooky groundskeeper suspects, witness toxic teas served in foul play, and tour the gardens-both real and imagined-that have been the settings for fiction's ghastliest misdeeds. A New York Times bestselling author herself, McDowell also introduces us to some of today's top writers who consider gardening integral to their craft, assuring that horticultural themes will remain a staple of the genre for countless twisting plots to come. SELLING POINTS: . Marta McDowell 's books explore the many ways that plants and gardens have inspired some of our most beloved authors . This is the first book to explore a broad selection of crime fiction writers and themes in order to uncover their deep ties to the world of horticulture. In the riveting pages, Marta reveals the gardening life of Agatha Christie's Miss Jane Marple, how Lily-of-the-valley is used in Anne Perry's Weighed in the Balance, the real-life Martha's Vineyard garden of Cynthia Riggs, and much more . Crime and mystery fiction are two of the most popular genres in publishing. This book will appeal to Marta's inborn audience as well as a whole new market of mystery readers who have yet to discover her 9 photos, 69 illustrations