Gardening Can Be Murder, Marta McDowell
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Gardening Can Be Murder
How Poisonous Poppies, Sinister Shovels, and Grim Gardens Have Inspired Mystery Writers

Author: Marta McDowell

Narrator: Elisabeth Rodgers

Unabridged: 5 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Timber Press

Published: 01/23/2024

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

This fun, engrossing book takes a look at the surprising influence that gardens and gardening have had on mystery novels and their authors. 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.   “This book is dangerous. A veritable cornucopia of crime fiction and gardening lore, it faces the reader with multiple temptations—books to seek out, plants to obtain, garden tours to book.” —Vicki Lane, author of the Elizabeth Goodweather Appalachian Mysteries

Author Bio

Marta McDowell teaches landscape history and horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden and consults for private clients and public gardens. Her books include The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder: The Frontier Landscapes that Inspired the Little House Books in September 2017. All the Presidents' Gardens made the New York Times bestseller list in 2015 and won an American Horticultural Society book award. Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life won a 2014 Gold Award from the Garden Writers Association and is in its sixth printing. Marta is working on a revision of her first book, Emily Dickinson's Gardens.

Marta is one of the founders of the Chatham Community Garden and is on the board of the NJ Historical Foundation at the Cross Estate in Bernardsville.

Her husband, Kirke Bent, summarizes her biography as "I am therefore I dig," and their pet cockatiel is named Sydney.

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