The Christmas Garden Affair — Ann Ripley

Louise Eldridge, star of public television's top garden show, gets an invitation to the First Lady's holiday party where her brash, network rival is the center of attention. Dead center, that is...

Sex sells...even in the home garden market. And Louise Eldridge, with her ratings fading faster than the last rose of summer, finds her once-popular PBS gardening show becoming the latest victim of one Bunny Bainfield. With her plunging necklines and extreme short shorts, the bodacious Bunny makes pruning, mulching, and planting into an erotic adventure, and her highly successful "Bunny in the Garden" label is turning the once rarefied world of gardening into a flashy, multi-million dollar business.

It galls Louise to see her precious gardening exploited for profit, especially when she discovers that both she and Bunny have been invited to the First Lady's exclusive Christmas conference on native plants, an event reserved for the nation's most elite horticulturists. But someone at the formal affair feels much more strongly about the ruthless blonde magnate with the very green thumbs. No sooner has Bunny networked her last deal, smiled for photos with the First Lady, and quaffed her wine when she falls to the floor in violent spasms, the victim of a very potent poison. Suddenly, botany has become a very ugly business indeed.

Surrounded by suspects galore, Louise is soon unearthing secrets about her fellow guests that make the Christmas spirit seem more menacing than joyful. For hiding just beneath the surface of a tradition steeped in grace and beauty lies the ugly truth of dollars and cents, deeply rooted resentments, backbiting jealousies, and bitter quarrels. And it isn't long before another body is found pushing up daisies. It's up to Louise to restore the good name of gardening by finding the killer, but the closer she gets to the truth, the deeper she may be digging her own grave...