Harvest Of Murder: A Gardening Mystery (Gardening Mysteries) [Hardcover]

Ann Ripley (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

A dog-walking professor friend of series sleuth and PBS-TV garden show host Louise Eldridge (The Garden Tour Affair) regales her with tales of his younger days in the Brazilian jungles. Just before his murder, however, he tells her of a good health-and-longevity plant he discovered there and has begun propagating for eventual commercial sale. Louise later works in his lab where various greedy suspects come trooping along so police actually ask for her "observations." Louise's subsequent sleuthing is tempered by plenty of familial banter, plant genetics information, and villainous machinations. An easy, pleasant read; for most collections.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

It's perhaps the ultimate irony that men searching for the fountain of youth often end up dying young, and so it is with the victim in Ripley's latest botanically based mystery. Eminent ethnobotanist Professor Peter Whiting is murdered just as his discovery of the life-enhancing properties of a rare jungle plant is about to be made public, and his neighbor and friend, Louise Eldridge, is not convinced that it's the act of a local serial killer, as police would have her believe. On hiatus from her popular PBS-TV show, the gardening guru dons her pseudosleuth persona and goes undercover in the research lab, where Whiting's widow continues her husband's experiments. While Louise tends to the plants that hold the key to longer life, her own existence is endangered. With a flair for the dramatic combined with a comforting sense of the mundane, Ripley's Eldridge is both an intrepid inquisitor and a gossipy gardener in this tale of biotech intrigue. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Kensington (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1575667754
• ISBN-13: 978-1575667751
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,237,818 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars good, September 20, 2002

By 

Emma (HK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Harvest Of Murder (Gardening Mysteries) (Paperback)

Due to the success of her PBS gardening show and the demands of her husband and two daughters, Louise Eldridge finds little time for herself. That is why she looks forward to walking her dog with former Jefferson University ethnobotanist Dr. Peter Whiting when he walks his dog. Peter regales Louise with fascinating stories about life in the Amazon. He claims a rain forest tribe has invented a fountain of youth through a plant they convert into tea.

However, her walks end when someone murders Peter in Ravine Park. Mt. Vernon District detective Mike Geraghy learns that Louise walked her dog with Peter every night near the crime site. He interviews her while warning her not to get involved as she has previously done in homicide investigations. However, Peter's wife asks Louise to help complete her husband's research. Though she agrees because her show is on hiatus, Louise would have said no if she understood the danger she is in from several assailants.

Though billed as a gardening mystery, HARVEST OF MURDER reads more like an amateur sleuth medical cozy though it never goes deeply into the science. The story line is shrewdly arranged so that the audience can comprehend the motivations of the key players, especially on the part of the scientists to include the victim. The heroine is a nurturing person whose family make her feel more like a neighbor to the reader who care what happens to Louise. Ann Ripley provides amateur sleuth fans and those who derive joy from a not so scientific medical thriller an affable reading experience.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not a good place to start in the series..., September 14, 2003

By 

Patricia Tryon (Longmont, CO United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Harvest Of Murder (Gardening Mysteries) (Paperback)

Probably I'll pick up another of Ann Ripley's books because I like gardening and because she lives just up the road here in Colorado. But truthfully, I was not able to make it past the first 60 pages of this book. The characters seemed wooden, the premise of the plot seemed completely implausible, and the writing itself had me sighing for better editing. Why all of two stars? Because I could see the possibilities, at least, even if they seemed woefully unrealized. There's much more and better to read, and I'm going to move along now.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nothing Fresh in This Harvest, December 21, 2002

By 

Ann Sherry (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Harvest Of Murder (Gardening Mysteries) (Paperback)

I bought this book because it had a cool cover, I like amateur sleuth mysteries, and I'd never read any in Ann Ripley's "gardening" series before. Though Ms. Ripley writes well enough, and she can follow a mystery plot formula, I was surprised at the sheer boredom of it all. Unless you like plants. Really like plants. The characters were one-dimensional, the dialogue stilted, and any attempts at humor fell flat. Outside of a good climactic scene, the rest of the story had me sitting there wondering when something interesting was going to happen. I think the author missed her chances at using the characters to make the book sparkle. I couldn't wait to finish this one, but not because it was a page turner.