Book Description
No one could ever accuse Jane Jeffry or her equally green-thumbless best friend Shelly Nowack of being modern reicarnations of Luther Burbank. Their ineptitude in all things vegatative has inspired them to sign up for a botany class at the local community center, even though the gods of gardening seem to be warning Jane to steer clear.
Jane trips on a curb and badly bangs up her foot, but his gamely hobbles to class on crutches and in a cast, only to learn that the glamorous and celebrated microbiologist teacher, Julie Jackson, has been beaten into a coma by a person or persons unknown. But the class must go on, even though the substitute teacher, Dr. Stewart Eastman, is the arrogant creator of his patented plant species and more interested in his personal ambition to achieve botanical fame and fortune than imparting knowledge or a love of gardening. He's propaganding only his ego and his latest floral coup.
When a murder occurs, there's and abundant crop of suspects in the class, Is the perp who plants a body in Dr. Eastman's compost pile the conspiracy nut Ursula Appledorn, who's' convinced that they are being stalked by a cabal involving the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Queen Elizabeth, and the French Dauphin? Or maybe the obsessively tidy computer nerd Charles Jones? Or the milquetoast widoer Arnold Waring? Perhaps it's the terrifying knowledgeable Miss Martha Winstead with her strong opinions on gardening?
Jane's beau, police detective Mel VanDyne, who admits to a secret longing to drive dieselpowered earth-moving equipment, is on the case, but hasn't seen the gardens the classmates have created -- wherein flourishes the floral clue to the grimy crime. Jane's afraid he'll pluck out the wrong suspect.
And Jane, her nuisance injury ignored, is willing to get her gardening gloves, and Shelly's as well, dirty to uneath the gardener who's responsible for one bashing and one buried.
Customer Reviews:
Is it a Lemon? (No. It's NOT a clunker car; it's a WINNAH!) Is it Lemonade? (Maybe. Yum.) Is it Hot? Is it Cold?.......2005-11-17
It's Jane Jeffry, Amazon housewife!
Mulch has it all. Hot toddy for your soul; cool for your jets. This author covers your escape reading bets (and includes satisfying sleuthing).
The lemon yellow cover with stalking cat captured my winter-edge need to slow down and do nothing.
When I picked up my copy of MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, the sunny yellow cover stuck to my soul craving dawn. A happy surge flooded the dark spots in my mind when I decided to temporarily table the "earn-my-keep" work in progress, and begin reading that book. I had missed Jane and wanted her light touch with fun, snarly undercurrents, and the play in quirky friendship with her neighbor, Shelley. The notes exchanged on their houses' doors gave an intriguing, quick entry into the story, and the irony of a wrong delivery (of flowers) and the machinations from that were genius plot ploys. The tension building between Jane, Shelley, and Mel were great stick-to-ribs for enhancing and percolating the story as well.
Loved the side-plots of Jill's solving mood problems, her own and her kids (sending Katie to a cooking school), and the compassion Jill shows for Arnie's grieving his late wife, even though she had to stretch her own views to realize his experience with death of a spouse was different from hers.
Insights into gardening were well beyond 101. This side(sub)-plot dug into genetics and patents for new breeds, and it excavated with entertainment rather than trenching the reader in ennui. Not being a gardener, I was surprised at how interesting the green thumb stuff could be, and how it tunneled through the plots, like ground-hogs in hay days. Ah, ah, ahchhooooo.
Of course, Churchill always gives the reader enough subplots to keep the story percolating, always at the edge of the pops, gurgles, and hisses of a drip coffee pot ending its cycle, giving sound to the anticipation of a fresh, hot drink craved with every surge of hope which comes with sunrise and spring.
Another of these subplots, one upon which much of the plot percolation pivots, launched with Churchill's usual spicy, easy flow syntax:
>> "They're (the flowers) probably evidence, Jane said, turning on her heal dramatically to get back into the car. She tripped over the curb and came down hard on her right foot, and her shoe turned sideways with a sickening popping noise that made her yelp involuntarily. Mel set down the flowers and he and Shelley rushed to scoop her up.
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Throughout this plot Jane was on crutches with a cast reaching almost up to her eyeballs. At first she openly relished being able to soak up sympathy and give herself a break, using the cast as an excuse, and it was certainly a legitimate one. A TV in the bedroom was the main side effect splurge, after which she slipped into a heroine mode of getting around the crutch & debilitation, carrying on with her life and responsibilities at near full speed. Then the other characters got the bashes and bruises (from getting in the way of Jane's flying crutch).
Prior to Jane's "slip, fall, crash, and burn" her pride had been heated so badly, she had leaped out of a blush-inducing, stainless-steel frying pan into a hotter, heavier, cast-iron one (this is a metaphor mixed into the other cast, not of characters, but the one covering Jane's foot, shin, and thigh). The pushed pride thing had hit the fan full swing after Mel snapped at Jane when he found her at a murder scene, and snarled that her presence at a crime scene was "gawking." Of course, on THIS rare occasion Jane & Shelley had been innocently and sweetly delivering flowers to a neighbor who (as the ladies didn't know yet) just happened to be dead (flowers which would blossom into the gardening prime-subplot and which had been delivered to Jane's address by mistake). Who knew?
Literally and figuratively on the ground for all the above reasons, Jane was provided (by Jill) with her usual self-honesty:
>> Jane felt like crying, not because her foot was hurting horribly, but because she had made a big fool of herself by flouncing off like that.
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Love the precision of the word, "flouncing," and its alliteration with "fool."
These are the types of descriptions which Jill so naturally slips into the flow of things, they give their effects effortlessly; Churchill's plots don't plod, they percolate. Like that drip coffee pot popping its cycle end mentioned above.
What with all my metaphor mixing, I really should get an electric beater, the kind with the huge, heavy bowl held-in-place by a swivel plate. This hand grinder is probably giving me carpel tunnel, or whatever you call that ailment, especially when I'm using the heck out of the hand beater simultaneous to typing like the mad woman I am. I, too, can use it or lose it. If I'm able to figure out what it was I was using, or losing. Probably my long lost train of thought.
Whoo, whoo. Toot. Toot.
Okay. That was enough. I'm done tooting my horn now. Back to the coffee pot. Ahhhh... Sip.
Check my review of Cleo Coyle's "On What Grounds," for proof of my insanity. Slurp. That novel would be a great follow-up to Mulch; you could put pink daisies in your coffee pot, then weed the roses and drink the steaming brew vicariously, like I live life.
I'm not really here in any fleshy, breathy sort of way. Lost my Proof of Existence Papers the other day. They went "Poof!" into the ozone during one of my nearly continuous flights there (I made the hole once when I sneezed). So bear with me as I bare my soul while I'm trying to relocate my ID, as I munch vicariously and precariously one of Joanne Fluke's chocolate chip cookies. Her Cookie Jar shop is right around the corner (where I'm holding as hostage one of my reviews on the Hannah Swensen series, trying to find my cached X-Files spotlight).
Well, what do you expect, this is a culinary review of a cozy mystery. Both came out of the oven, fresh, hot, and ... burning my hands! Oooochhhh! Those pot holders are for what?
Gotta go reread my reviews on EO's (Essential Oils) to find out what works for burns. Oh, yeah, aloe. Need to put that in my Listmana.
I should issue a warning to not get used to my silly, sudsy, dud-ly humor.
I live on the edge of the banana peels littering my kitchen tiles, but as a moody person, sometimes I get tired of slipping, and execute some serious housecleaning (in my dreams). So, as soon as you get used to something in my many modes of style (and the high class syntax up my a..); as soon as you begin craving more of something, that's exactly when my mood will change and I'll leave you high, dry, and pounding the table. Chust (I review Amish, too) don't go to Amazon and rip my off-base moods, already. I can be as dangerous as Stephen King to people who don't praise my work to high heaven, though low heaven is acceptable once in a while. Believe me. I'm BAD. Yes. (At 58 yrs old it isn't easy to maintain a bad-gal facade, especially when I'm hiding such a genuinely sweet sensitivity.)
Asides simmering aside (in my witch's cast-iron kettle; I do curses, too, but I make them fizzle before they flop), this is another delightful read from Churchill with an entertainingly fascinating sideline of gardening genetics, which is explained and dramatized with just enough depth to be comprehended easily with a kick of advanced flavor (it's not labor intensive, no plucky or puky puns are intended). Yum.
So, what do you do with mulch? Use it, or lose it (as it decays into Sacred Fertilizer, which is my lady's term for Holy S...). Scarab Beetles do know what they're about as they burrow into their own dung. How could they not? Being from Egypt should give anything an edge in the ancient-wisdom, sphinx games, due to proximity to The Great Pyramid. Maybe I should go there to write my next mystery series? (And not return until I get a grip on my keyboard?)
Going, going, gone. Lost it. Maybe I'll find whatever "it" is before I write another review. Maybe I should snooze a while first. But, isn't that when you're supposed to lose?
What's that white corner over there under the leg of my bar stool, which is perched on my black-and-white, ceramic tile, fictional floor? Oh. Wow. It looks like the Proof I've been looking for, the geometric one which will give me a clue, maybe even two. Who am I? That Paper says it all!
Burp. Bending over. Streeeeeettttcchhhing...
CRASH!
Oh no! Oh dear. Oh my.
I'm NOT getting a type cast, or an iron cast (or would that be clad?), or a ... whatever. Thank heaven I just ran out of words.
Read Jill Churchill's Jane Jeffry. You'll never run out of anything you need. A Staple. That's what she is. Like sugar for your coffee. Cream for your tea. Lemons for your ade. And I don't mean that tool for holding pages together, though she has that, too. It's called a publisher. That's what I need. Jill? Don't run and hide! I'm CHUST kidding!
But, I'm serious when I rave Jane Jeffry. I'm deadly serious when I rave any murder mystery. You'd better believe it. That's a threat by Stephen King's apprentice.
Shut my mouth! Before I spout a curse and regret it.
Gritting teeth, clamping lips (that makes a grimace, not a grin), oh man, I've gone too far.
Off the edge, I leap,
Linda G. Shelnutt
P.S. You may never hear from me again. Don't ask if that's a warning, a curse, or a threat. I'm not Stephen, yet. He, he, he. Heh. So mote it be (all in good fun).
Enjoyable enough.......2002-02-24
Todd was at soccer camp, the cooking lessons were to keep Ursula away, who cares what Shelley's husband was doing? Or Jane's in-laws? Or if a murder doesn't actually happen until late in the book? It's still got a mystery in it! I liked Shelley's and Jane's gardening solutions, too!
Light Frothy Gardening Mystery.......2002-02-14
If you like light, frothy and cozy mysteries, this is the book for you. I enjoy Jill Churchill's books even though I have been able to guess the murderer in each, but this does not deter me from further reading.
Jane and Shelly are best friends living next door to each other. Jane (not unlikely for a cozy mystery) has a detective boyfriend named Mel. So when a murder does happen, he is conveniently there to help her and her friend solve it.
In this book, Jane and Shelly enroll in a gardening class, but the teacher has bludgeoned and lies in a coma. A stuffy plant researcher takes over the class but instead of teaching the basics of gardening, he immediately delves into plant patents by showing off his pink marigolds.
The class itself is made up of an odd assortment of garden "lovers" who want to show off their particular gardens to the others--some of which are very good and some horrid.
Then, the substitute lecturer is found dead in his own compost pile, and Jane and Shelly are off to find who in the class did him in.
Mulch is an enjoyable and quick read with many humorous touches thrown in by the author. Plan to read Jill Churchill's books if you want to be entertained, and you won't be disappointed.
An enjoyable read!!.......2002-02-02
I picked up this book at the grocery store when I was desperate for something to read while visiting relatives. What a joy! Although this was my first Jan Jeffry novel, it's not my last!
Jane Jeffry and her friend Shelly Nowack offer some laughs while they work to solve a crime. In this case they signed up to take a gardening class when the instructor is attacked and the substitute instructor is killed. While Jane juggles house work, raising children and a gardening class, her and her friend work to solve a the murder.
If I could rate it a 4+ I would have done that or a 5-. Mainly because I thought the ending was a little bit abrupt. However, it was a great read and I'm buying more of her books today.
Enjoy.
Definitely Not Her Best Work..........2002-01-23
I was very disappointed when I read this book. I wouldn't miss a Jane Jeffry mystery novel, but this is something that even a fan like myself can pass on. This book is lacking in plot and concentrates too much on the gardening. The mystery is mentioned in the beginning, and seems to falter off as the story slowly wears on. With a few mentions every twenty pages or so, the mystery seems to be forgotten. Suddenly, the reader is hit in the face with the solution and the killer. It comes to an almost abrupt end, and is definitely not Jill Churchill's best work.
Customer Reviews:
A joy to read!.......2007-04-13
What a great book. I found this book in my mother's basement when we moved her last year. It had a great "70's" style cover and a title that intrigued the gardener in me. Well, all I can say is WOW! What an entertaining and informative book. I really felt like I was in the garden with Ruth. She was guiding me through my entire growing season and I was loving my garden again. I was truely entertained by the book, but most impressive were the results that I saw in my own garden. My best season ever. It lasted well into November here in PA (brocolli from my own garden for Thanksgiving dinner) and I attribute that to the great tips and practices that I learned and used from this book.
A Wonderful Gardening Book.......2003-04-28
I've read this book numerous times, and enjoyed it every single time. I'm a garden writer myself (Allergy-Free Gardening) and I always appreciate good garden writing. For my money, no one did it any better than Ruth Stout. Her writing is useful, practical, easy to follow, sensible, fun, often funny, and is a joy to read. She was quite the gardener, and went about gardening in an intelligent and creative way, with her eyes wide open to things that worked, or those that didn't.
Ruth Stout really ought to be known as the "Mother of Mulch," since she was such a strong advocate for this practice. This book would make a fine addition to anyone's personal gardening library, and would also make an excellent gift for a friend who loves gardening. If you grow vegetables and flowers and have never read this gem, treat yourself to a copy. Remarkably good!
Sage advice for gardners of any level!.......2002-08-08
Ruth Stour's book is so incredibly conversational that I feel that I've been invited over for tea and weeding. It's broken up in several different essays and fun to read cover to cover. Despite the fact that it's more of a novel than a how-to book, you'll want to run out to your garden and try out a few things after each page. Today, she's well into her 90's -- a testament to how beneficial gardening is both for the garden and the gardner!
Book Description
Since 1973, Storey's Country Wisdom Bulletins have offered practical, hands-on instructions designed to help readers master dozens of country living skills quickly and easily. There are now more than 170 titles in this series, and their remarkable popularity reflects the common desire of country and city dwellers alike to cultivate personal independence in everyday life.
Customer Reviews:
Some really great advise and helpful information.......2006-07-12
Love the Storey Country Wisdom Bulletins. These are great because they are inexpensive and they offer basic useable information that most people can use. This bulletin on row covers and mulches is a time saver in so many ways. First the various methods of extending the garden season is something those who live in short growing season areas or where fall can bring a surprise cold snap will appreciate. And so many inexpensive ways to keep the cold at bay from seedling and plants. How many people ever thought to lay a piece of lattice on cement blocks as a shade cover for things like lettuce?
Then there are the easy to make, inexpensive row covers that are like mini green houses. And the floating mess covers that keep harmful pests out of tomatoes, cabbage etc crops, since they cannot get thru the mesh. So many people complain of various beetles and moths that wreak havoc on crops they have spent so much time planting and tending.
Have never used the black plastic as mulch where you cut and plant seedlings, but plan on it since it sure seems to save on weeding as well as watering.
Book Description
Details on how to use bark, stones, hay, compost, plastic sheeting, and other materials as a barrier to keep weeds out and beneficial elements in. Includes information that will allow readers to create their own mulches and select appropriate mulches for specific plants.
Customer Reviews:
How to mulch effectively and inexpensively.......2000-04-15
As a novice gardener, I found this book to be extremely informative and inspiring in my quest to create the perfect mulch. The quick reference guide is very useful in that it provides necessary information about each type of mulch, such as decomposition speed, soil moisture retention and relative cost. I also found the section of definitions especially helpful in trying to determine the best mulch for my garden. It's amazing how many different common products can be used to create a mulch that is rich in nutrients, appealing to the eye and terrific in water retention. Overall, I view this book as a strong addition to my library of gardening books.
Book Description
Weeding. Watering. Soil improvement. Frost and heat protection. Wouldn't it be wonderful if these gardening and landscaping chores could be simplified with one easy method? They can! This book is a reader's guide to the gardener's secret weapon for healthy, carefree and beautiful gardens and landscapes - mulch. Advice on every kind of mulch and on how to use mulches on everything from landscape plantings to vegetable gardens makes this the one book that gives readers everything they need to know to use mulch most effectively.
Product Description
A new method of gardening using mulch
Book Description
Tangled Roots.
When Amy Creighton finds the body of a young man in a mulch pile, the sixty-year-old editor is as stunned as the rest of the peaceful community of Granton, Maine. But her sharp mind and eye for detail quickly pull her into a mystery that threatens to expose some dark secrets about the inhabitants of this historic locale.
Amy and the local constable, Dort Adams, join forces and discover that the victim, William Stillman, had come from Boston to find his birth parents. But what fatal truths did he learn? Who was desperate enough to silence him in such a brutal and final manner? And what secrets can an abandoned dog found near the body reveal? A second murder victim adds a twisted thread of greed and money to the mystery -- and opens the door to a solution both shocking and tragic.
Customer Reviews:
Best mystery I've read all summer..........2005-08-30
I have struggled through, and sometimes tossed aside, too many mysteries this summer written in first person and with/or a definite occupational slant, ie, herb growing, cooking, quilting, etc. The other end of the spectrum has gratuitous violence.
Despite the title, this is not a particularly "occupational" mystery. The characters are not petulant and temper prone, but rather, interesting and caring.
The plot is rather twisted and convoluted, and although the denouement seems clear at one point, there is one last twist in it.
Hopefully, this is the beginning of a series.
Hooked.......2004-06-04
Excellent read. Can't wait for more about this fascinating older sleuth.
I feel I've found a "Nancy Drew" for the Adult Crowd!.......2003-01-26
Reading this book reminds me of reading Nancy Drew mysteries as a girl. That young sleuth was just like me and I was just like her. (At least, I would have been like her if my parents were as lenient as hers were!) The gardening, composting sleuth of The Maine Mulch Murder is just as credible. It is a rare treat to find such a familiar sleuth. Not only are the gardening details correct, but Amy's attitudes, habits, schedule, and other life details blend with integrity. She utilizes her practical reasoning skills, honed through gardening, to solve this murder. I really enjoyed it. [I would suggest that you NOT read the inside book flap. It told me too much about plot details. I think the story would be better if some of those facts weren't revealed until the book content reveals them.]
Perfect reading for a lazy summer afternoon.......2001-08-04
This was a delightful and quick mystery to read....which makes it ideal for an afternoon at the beach. The main character is a delighful 60 year old lady gardener who turns sleuth when she finds a body and becomes determined to find the killer. Along the way she reunites with an old flame and what happens next requires actually reading the book. The ending is possibly predictable depending perhaps on the number of mysteries you've read. But overall it was well worth an afternoon of relaxing reading.
Book Description
Rooting out a killer can dig you a grave...
Amateur gardener and housewife Louise Eldridge has big plans for her family's new Sylvan Valley home, situated among the flower of suburban Washington, D.C., society. Some Japanese iris here, some skunk cabbage there...and her own cozy cabin for her horticultural writings. But barely has she turned the topsoil when her organic mulching unearths the unidentifiable remains of a murder victim. Suddenly her elegant garden is a crime scene blighted by garish yellow police tape.
And Louise--cultivating the rich and restless wives of the neighborhood and their hothouse secrets--must find out who has gone missing. For only then can she root out a rare species of killer who could soon be digging her grave.
Customer Reviews:
Enjoyable book, Details don't always hang together.......2003-01-26
I enjoy mysteries with sleuths who are realistic. I am always scavenging leaves for my compost pile so I really relate to Louise Eldridge's leaf-collecting methods. This book is obviously written by a true gardener. I thought the plot was good and I enjoyed reading the book. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 mainly because details don't always fit together and that is an irritation. For example, Louise painstakingly monitors every word she says to neighbors so noone will know her husband is a CIA spook. But she feels it is OK to get publicly drunk and be hypnotized which would both be situations where secrets slip. If a few inconsistencies in the characters don't bother you, especially if you are a gardener or composter, read the book.
A Real Character -- Like You and Me!.......1998-07-09
I am always impressed when authors make their characters become real. And, that is just what Ann Ripley has done! Louise Eldridge seems to have a real husband who nearly falls into the lust garden for the neighbor and real kids who fall in love with the neighbor boy or have "pricey" college expenses.
Here's the garden scoop, Louise becomes a local celebrity when she lands her own public television gardening show in the Washington, D.C. area. However, this is her first real job. So, she's a little naive when it comes to professional competition. When a murder occurs in this setting and context, she becomes a big time suspect. Her technical skill about plants along with her humor and character parlay against her fears.
Though I am always anxious to find new mystery series authors, I find Ann Ripley's character, Louise Eldridge, great fun and educational. Read this book if you love plants . . .or if you love new types of mysteries! I bet you will be just like me and want to read "Mulch" (which I wish I had read first) and "Death of a Political Plant."
Ho-Hum.......1998-05-07
This really only kept my interest to a point and then I skimmed through just to find out how it ended. I have no desire to try any of her other books. You have to like the main characters and care about them enough to keep reading . The main character was too whiny for my tastes.
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- Old Man's Cave (Bone, Book 6)
- Other Voices, Other Rooms
- Outlaws of the Marsh (Chinese Classics 4-Volume Boxed Set) [BOX SET]
- Presumed Guilty: What the Jury Never Knew About Laci Peterson's Murder and Why Scott Peterson Should Not Be on Death Row
- QuickTime Toolkit Volume Two: Advanced Movie Playback and Media Types (QuickTime Developer Series)
- Ralph Compton Trail to Cottonwood Falls (Ralph Compton Western Series)
- Repair Manual: Cadillac 1967 to 1989 : All U.S. and Canadain Models of Deville, Eldorado, Fleetwood, Seville, Commercial Chassis, Including Diesel and V8-6-4engines
- Rich Dad's Advisors®: The ABC's of Getting Out of Debt: Turn Bad Debt into Good Debt and Bad Credit into Good Credit (Rich Dad's Advisors)
- Rich Dad's Escape from the Rat Race: How to Become a Rich Kid by Following Rich Dad's Advice (Rich Dad)
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A Groom with a View (Jane Jeffry Mystery Series #11)
The House of Seven Mabels (Jane Jeffry Mystery Series #13)
The Merchant of Menace (Jane Jeffry Mystery Series #10)
Fear of Frying (Jane Jeffry Mystery Series #9)
War and Peas (Jane Jeffry Mystery Series #8)
