Product Description

Rooting out a killer can dig you a grave...

Amateur gardener and housewife Louise Eldridge has big plans for her family's new Sylvan Valley home, situated among the flower of suburban Washington, D.C., society. Some Japanese iris here, some skunk cabbage there...and her own cozy cabin for her horticultural writings. But barely has she turned the topsoil when her organic mulching unearths the unidentifiable remains of a murder victim. Suddenly her elegant garden is a crime scene blighted by garish yellow police tape.

And Louise--cultivating the rich and restless wives of the neighborhood and their hothouse secrets--must find out who has gone missing. For only then can she root out a rare species of killer who could soon be digging her grave.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1773398 in Books
• Published on: 1998-01-05
• Released on: 1998-01-05
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 6.34" h x .55" w x 4.00" l, .41 pounds
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 304 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Coincidence and intuition figure prominently in the two-pronged plot of this slender, predictable first novel set in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. Foreign-service wife Louise Eldridge is settling her family into their new northern Virginia home, in the same neighborhood where Peter Hoffman, a possible candidate for undersecretary of defense, lives. Louise, an organic gardener, begins to collect bags of leaves from her neighbors' curbsides to fill in a low spot in the back yard. Concurrently, Peter realizes he must jettison his mistress, another neighbor, in order to stay in the running for the government post. Louise and her family are shocked to discover parts of a severed body in some of the lawn bags. When Louise's husband agrees to vet Peter, the Eldridges throw a dinner party, at which a slightly tipsy Louise leads the smarmy Peter to suspect she connects him to the murder. Their subsequent meeting, when Louise bravely fends off Peter's attempt to kill her, will not surprise those readers who have stuck with the story.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Gamely establishing still another garden after her husband, Bill, an ill-concealed State Department spook, moves her back to suburban DC, Louise Eldridge gathers two dozen bags of leaves from her Sylvan Valley neighbors' trash to use as organic mulch. Maybe a little too organic, since when she and her daughter Janie spread the contents of those plastic bags, they discover the chainsawed arms, legs, and torso of a woman the police can't identify. But we can: We know it's neighbor Peter Hoffman's too-clinging mistress Kristina Weeren, whom Peter strangled when her existence threatened his confirmation as undersecretary of Defense. Now, if only Louise could remember the telltale detail about the night she collected those leaves.... A first novel whose slender plot leaves its smart, appealing heroine all dressed up with no place to go. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review
"Certain to appeal to mystery readers with green thumbs!"
--The Denver Post

"Very impressive."
--The Washington Times

"A fun, fast read."
--Purloined Letter

"Fun...entertaining...Ann Ripley sure knows how to move the story along....definitely recommended!"
--Mystery News