Something in the Water
MacLeod CharlotteWhile vacationing in Maine, Professor Peter Shandy confronts a poisonous potpie.
Massachusetts
horticulturalist Peter Shandy is famous for his rutabagas, but he comes
to Maine with a loftier plant in mind. Specifically, he wants to size
up the world-renowned lupines of Frances Rondel, a nonagenarian whose
legendary flowers are even more beautiful in life than they are in myth.
Shandy is bitterly jealous, but finds a major distraction in the dining
room of the country inn where he's staying. He may grow wretched
lupines, but no gardener can solve a murder like Peter Shandy.
The
corpse belongs to the late Jasper Flodge, a local loudmouth with a
toupee and a sizeable gut. Shoveling down the last bites of a chicken
potpie, Flodge clutches his chest and falls dead. Suddenly with more to
do than stopping to smell the lupines, Shandy must ask himself: Which
Maine cook has the bad taste to flavor chicken with cyanide?