Saturday, May 30, 2015

Murder Sets Seed / Janis Harrison / 248 pages / Gardening Challenge

Bretta Solomon owns the number one florist shop in River City, Missouri, about sixty miles from Branson.  In an attempt to get her life back on track after the death of her husband Carl eighteen months ago, she has purchased the Beauchamp mansion and gardens and is lovingly and painstakingly restoring them in hopes of one day operating as a boarding house.  She must work around many of the former eccentric owner's possessions, methodically transferring them to the attic.  The former owner, Cameo Beauchamp-Sinclair, requests that Bretta hold a party with a guest list she provides so that she can witness Bretta's renovations.  Bretta invites her staff and decorates for the holidays using the party as a practice run for a gala open house be held in a few weeks.  Unbeknownst to Bretta, Cameo has another reason for the gathering.  She informs the group - a historian, a genealogist, a reporter, a photographer, and a lawyer, that one of them has been blackmailing her.  She is going to turn the blackmail letters over to the postal inspector the next morning.  Unfortunately, she never gets the chance.  She is murdered with a string of decorative lights when the lights go out.  Carl's investigations had proved that "killers were ordinary people caught in circumstances that pushed them to the ultimate level of destruction".  Cameo had given the motive for murder.  [Bretta] had provided the means and opportunity.  Who had been desperate enough to kill?  Bretta is determined to find out....

"Forgiveness doesn't come cheap.  The price is usually the cost of our pride."

No comments:

Post a Comment