Janis Harrison Bindweed

Bindweed

Janis Harrison

St. Martin's, Dec 2005, $23.95, 288 pp.

ISBN: 0312348134

In River City, Missouri, before she passed away from a terminal illness, Agnes Sutton arranged with the Hawthorne Street shopkeepers to hire her brain damaged son Toby to do odd jobs for them, so that he can remain somewhat independent. Though only mentally functioning like a child, Toby is a dedicated helper doing his chores diligently, like washing store windows and taking out the trash.

Thus when Bretta Solomon, owner of the flower shop, learns that her conscientious helper died from hornet bites, she takes it personally perhaps because her late spouse Carl was a deputy sheriff. Bretta wonders why anyone would kill the harmless Toby by planting the deadly nest inside his room. The only possible motive she can think of must be Agnes' odd-looking flowers that someone stole from the deceased woman's garden. She ponders whether these flowers can be valuable enough for someone to REAP A WICKED HARVEST that led to murder. She investigates, while also slowing down her romance with a neighbor and coping with her father's thirty-something squeeze wanting to redesign her home.

This is a terrific amateur sleuth tale in which the clues are discovered by the heroine in a reasonable but clever manner. The support cast provides the eccentricities of small town living, especially Bretta's battling assistants Lew and Lois, who argue over everything, even that critical 1960's question of Superman or Spiderman, and her father with his "designer girlfriend" who becomes her cohort in sleuthing. Readers will enjoy the latest Gardening Mystery.

Harriet Klausner