Roots of Murder

The Flower Shop in River City, MO, is Bretta Solomon's whole life. Widowed more than a year ago when her cop husband had a heart attack, Bretta has thrown herself into her florist's business and her place in this small rural Midwestern community. And her diet--she's lost a lot of weight in the intervening year. If only she could shed her grief in the same way.

When Bretta reads in the newspaper that Isaac Miller, an Amish farmer who supplied some of her most beautiful flowers, has died under mysterious circumstances, she's shocked and saddened. But her shock turns to curiosity when Isaac's brother, Evan, a friend of hers since his family bought her parents' farm in neighboring Woodgrove, calls and asks her to help him find out more about his brother's death.

What Bretta finds when she begins looking into Isaac's murder--for that's what it was--is a complicated web of mistrust and suspicion both inside and around the Amish community. The sheriff suspects Evan, Evan suspects the neighbors, and Bretta finds her florist competitors unnaturally interested in Isaac's garden.

Bretta's talent for digging around is both her blessing and her curse. Roots of Murder is the first novel in Janis Harrison's Bretta Solomon Gardening Mysteries--a charming cozy mystery and an atmospheric story about small-town life.