Summer Garden Murder — Ann Ripley

The star of public television's top garden show, Louise Eldridge is something of a celebrity. But when a dead body is planted in her backyard, she's in for notoriety of a different kind...
Summer is the season for disquiet in Louise's Sylvan Valley cul de sac, and the tradition continues when an uninvited guest crashes a neighborhood soiree. Five years ago, Louise identified Peter Hoffman as the "mulch murderer." Now he's been released from a Virginia state mental institution. Leaving the party doesn't put enough distance between Louise and Hoffman, who has a thing or two to say to her--and actually has the nerve to follow her home to air his grievances. Shaken by the incident, Louise and family decide to take a little R&R at the beach in the hope that Hoffman will have moved on by the time they return.

When they get back from vacation, Hoffman's moved on all right--but not in quite the way Louise had hoped. He's been missing for seven days, and Louise is the one who finds him...buried beneath her native azalea patch. Things go from bad to worse once the police learn that someone saw Louise planting one of the nights she was supposed to be out of town. With suspicion buzzing around her, she starts doing some snooping among her friendly--and not-so-friendly-neighbors, including high-powered attorney Mike Cunningham, who may have had a shady business deal going with Hoffman; Hilde, an apprentice gardener with something to hide; and Hoffman's own widow, whose relationship with her husband wasn't exactly a bed of roses. But before Louise can make any serious headway, another murder victim turns up--felled by a garden claw covered in Louise's fingerprints.

Now, with more than just her television career in jeopardy, Louise will have to dig up some serious clues to bring a killer to light--before another person winds up as fertilizer...