Customer Reviews

Death of a Political Plant: A Gardening Mystery

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I've read quite a few mysteries, but this one kept me guessing. Each character introduced seemed a likely suspect. Great plot and story development. You don't have to be a gardener to appreciate this mystery, but if you are, you'll love it even more. This one stays in my personal library.

Louise Eldridge, co-anchor of the "Gardening With Nature" TV show, agrees to allow her former lover, news reporter Jay McCormack, to stay at her Washington DC home as a houseguest. Jay is conducting an undercover investigation of the Goodrich camp's presidential campaign tactics. He has evidence that they are spreading ugly lies about their opponent, the incumbent president, to discredit him and elect their man.

When Jay is murdered, Louise begins to investigate. She learns that Jay has incriminating proof that Goodrich approved his camp not only spreading lies against the President, but buying informers to verify those falsehoods are "true". They established a phony audit trail. However, the Goodrich campaign team has proven that they will do anything, including murder, to insure that knowledge is never made public.

Readers will enjoy this humorous and poignant political who-done-it. The heroine is charming as she struggles to get out of trouble and the political dirty tricks (though apparently extreme) are fun to read about. However, the gardening essays, interspersed throughout the novel, will interest only to those who enjoy this hobby. The essays for us non-gardeners can be easily skipped without losing the story line. The rest of Ann Ripley's DEATH OF A POLITICAL PLANT: A GARDENING MYSTERY is a wonderful mystery, leaving readers with the seed of wanting the next installment to be published quickly.

Harriet Klausner

This was my first experience with a Ripley book and I was very disappointed. Since the book's setting is very close to where I live, I found her descriptions of the environment and the characters interesting. However, the story dragged on and on and the solution to the crime was contrived.