Join Mystery Gardeners in Rooting Out Evil

Spring blossoms perfume the air, and the garden centers are crowded. Luckily, if you're a mystery lover with a passion for gardening, the shelves are full of fiction to satisfy both interests! Sleuthing gardeners, or gardening sleuths, can find a kindred spirit in Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe, a food-loving armchair detective who is also an ardent cultivator of orchids; if you're new to the series, begin with the seminal first entry, Fer-de-Lance. Or learn some herbalist arts from award-winning Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael, a 12th century English monk with a keen eye for poisonous human and plant secrets (A Morbid Taste for Bones is a good starting point). The English are noted for their gardens and their mysteries, so retired botany professors with detective skills seem to abound. That includes Anthony Eglin's English Garden mysteries featuring retired botany professor Lawrence Kingston (The Alcatraz Rose is an International Book Awards winner); award-winning author E.X. (Elizabeth) Ferrars' Andrew Basnett, another retired botany prof; and John Sherwood's Horticultural series with Celia Grant, a London botanist. Back in the U.S.A., gardening mysteries bloom in the cozy category, including Washington, D.C., gardener and housewife Louise Eldridge, who digs up crime in the Ann Ripley series that debuted with Mulch. Meanwhile, Susan Wittig Albert offers China Bayles, an herbalist and former attorney in Pecan Springs, Texas; the series debut, Thyme of Death, was a finalist for Agatha and Anthony awards. A unique choice is Naomi Hirahara's sleuth Mas Arai, a Hiroshima survivor and Los Angeles gardener. Snakeskin Shamisen won an Edgar Award and was an Anthony Award finalist. For more gardening-themed mysteries, see http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/JobCats/HerbsGardens.html

The Medieval Mystery: Death and Pageantry

The violence and pageantry of the Medieval world, from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the Renaissance (5th through 15th centuries), has been a popular backdrop for fantasy and romance fiction, but murder mystery writers also like the period. Crime-solving set in castle, monastery and walled town pairs archaic suspects, such as lords, serfs, knights, maidens, monks, minstrels and lepers, with the evergreen motives for mayhem. That the quest for moral justice must navigate a feudal society torn by war, plague and intolerance enriches the plots. The literary world first embraced the Medieval mystery with Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. Young Brother William of Baskerville investigates the bizarre deaths of monks at an Italian monastery in a complex novel pitting Aristotelian logic against theology as the hero tries to decipher secret symbols and coded manuscripts. Those who find Eco's opus too philosophically dense may enjoy Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael mysteries instead, in which a 12th century Benedictine monk tackles local murders with psychological insight and primitive forensics. Other series include Caroline Roe's Isaac from Girona mysteries about the sleuthing of a blind doctor in mid-1300 Spain; Kate Sedley's Roger the Chapman mysteries featuring a peddler in Medieval England; Bernard Knight's Crowner John mysteries about a former Crusader knight serving the king's justice in 12th century England; Ian Morson's William Falconer series with crime-solving by a 13th-century Oxford University Regent Master; Philip Gooden’s Chaucer Tales, relying on Geoffrey Chaucer, future poet and diplomat, to put together the clues; and Susanna Gregory's Matthew Bartholomew mysteries, in which a teacher of medicine investigates murders in 14th-century Cambridge. Paul Doherty is another Medieval mystery leader with multiple series (Brother Athelstan mysteries for one), but try his Satan in St. Mary for a fun read about a real murder in 13th century London. If you're bored by Medieval males, check out Peter Tremayne's Sister Fidelma mysteries, with a 7th century Irish nun as detective, or read Ariana Franklin's Mistress of the Art of Death, where an ahead-of-her-time 12th century woman doctor investigates. For historical mystery options, regardless of time period: http://bestmysterybooks.com/best-historical-mystery-books.html