Jill Churchill: Mulch Ado About Nothing

When Jane and neighbor Shelley Nowack sign up for a gardening class at their local community center, they end up with a substitute, the pompous Dr. Stewart Eastman, after an unknown intruder sneaks into the home of the regular teacher, Julie Jackson, and knocks her out, leaving her in a coma. Suspects in the attack include everyone taking the gardening class: fastidious computer programmer Charles Jones, persnickety librarian Martha Winstead, lonely widower Arnie Waring and loony aging hippie Ursula Appledorn. But in this leisurely, talky tale, Jane is less concerned with crime solving than with visiting the gardens of her classmates, tending to her injured foot, worrying about her teenage son s unsuitable girlfriend and buying herself a new TV for her bedroom. Only near the end does a murder occur. Dr. Eastman is found strangled with green twine in a compost pile, after which Churchill brings the plot to a tidy conclusion, with the killer s motive turning on Dr. Eastman s patented pink marigolds.