From Publishers Weekly
Despite its goofy plot, cast of caricatures, digressions and lack of suspense, MacLeod's lively mystery lampoon set in coastal Maine, where she lives, will surely please her myriad fans. Jasper Flodge, a loutish dinner guest at Bright's Inn, abruptly expires onto his recently cleaned plate of chicken pot pie and is pronounced dead of cyanide poisoning. The only other diners at the time are Peter Shandy, professor of botany at Balaclava Agricultural College and unofficial "sleuth-for-all-seasons," who was seen most recently in An Owl Too Many , and elderly Claridge Withington, an avid amateur horticulturist who reminds Shandy of the Ancient Mariner. Shandy proceeds to unravel a devious scam involving unloved, miserly Flodge, the flamboyant woman claiming to be his widow, and two others. He figures out the murderer and the suitably loony method. But he nevers solves the mystery that has drawn him from his native Massachusetts to Maine: Why do the lupines growing in the rocky soil of nearby Rondel's Head bloom so gloriously? And what keeps their nonagenarian nurturer, Frances Rondel, so spry? MacLeod has good sport with the laconic reputation of Maine residents, but this arch humor, no matter how fond, will likely appeal most to MacLeod followers. Mystery Guild selection . Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Professor Peter Shandy, a botanist par excellence, witnesses the sudden death of a diner in a landmark Maine restaurant. No one believes that the despised man died naturally, but did he commit suicide to spite his wife or die by another's hand?Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Botanist-sleuth Peter Shandy (An Owl Too Many, etc.) is staying at Bright's Inn, a landmark in the Maine coastal village of Pickwance, while he visits the famed lupines of elderly retired teacher Frances Rondel. This peaceful mission is interrupted, though, by the sudden death of despised local con man Jasper Flodge, who collapses into his chicken potpie one night in the Inn's dining room, dead of cyanide poisoning. As days pass, the restaurant becomes a backdrop for drama--explosive outbursts from Flodge's estranged widow Lucivee; the tender reunion of Fred Wye with wife Iolanthe, separated for three years by one of Flodge's nastier scams--all of it endlessly and boringly commented on by the Inn's resident busybody, Claridge Withington. It takes a second killing and a flood of casual gossip before sharp-eared Shandy, now joined by wife Helen, figures it all out. A bizarre puzzle fueled by bizarre characters in the comfy downhome ambiance so well done by MacLeod. Her legion of fans will love it. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

ANNOTATION

Peter Shandy heads to Maine to investigate some lupines, a beautiful flowering legume, appearing in places where it shouldn't grow, and growing to enormous sizes. But that's not the only thing growing, deadly secrets are in full flower in the small coastal town. Shandy is soon on the trail of a mystery that's anything but garden variety.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Although real murder is never a laughing matter, Charlotte MacLeod makes the fictional kind more fun than anyone else. Her latest outing with Professor Peter Shandy, New England's famous horticulturist and homegrown hercule Poirot, takes us to the Maine coast, a world of stormy seas and verdant gardens where dark and bright are strangely mixed... and where secrets abound. Peter Shandy has journeyed northward alone to escape his wife Helen's all-female house party and to go in search of some mysterious lupines - glorious great spikes of bloom that are reportedly growing where conditions should make their existence impossible. He takes a room at a quaint old inn in Pickwance, Maine, and is awaiting a serving of Indian pudding in the dining room when the town's most disliked citizen, Jasper Flodge, keels over, face first, into his chicken pot pie. Foul play is soon suspected - especially since everyone in Pickwance feels that while Jasper never finished his main course, he got his just desserts. Shandy, however, is more intrigued by another enigma. He has located the lupines at an ancient farm owned by Frances Hodgson Rondel, a woman of great age and fixed opinions. Her plants are inexplicably lush, her hens are in glowing health, and she herself is as spry as a woman of forty. Could it be something in the soil - or in the bubbling spring that Miss Rondel guards from prying eyes? And whose voice did Shandy hear shouting threats as he came up the nearly impassable drive? Just as an unidentified element is making Miss Rondel's lupines bloom with incredible splendor, an unknown someone is turning love and hate, greed and lies, into fertile ground - for murder.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Despite its goofy plot, cast of caricatures, digressions and lack of suspense, MacLeod's lively mystery lampoon set in coastal Maine, where she lives, will surely please her myriad fans. Jasper Flodge, a loutish dinner guest at Bright's Inn, abruptly expires onto his recently cleaned plate of chicken pot pie and is pronounced dead of cyanide poisoning. The only other diners at the time are Peter Shandy, professor of botany at Balaclava Agricultural College and unofficial ``sleuth-for-all-seasons,'' who was seen most recently in An Owl Too Many , and elderly Claridge Withington, an avid amateur horticulturist who reminds Shandy of the Ancient Mariner. Shandy proceeds to unravel a devious scam involving unloved, miserly Flodge, the flamboyant woman claiming to be his widow, and two others. He figures out the murderer and the suitably loony method. But he nevers solves the mystery that has drawn him from his native Massachusetts to Maine: Why do the lupines growing in the rocky soil of nearby Rondel's Head bloom so gloriously? And what keeps their nonagenarian nurturer, Frances Rondel, so spry? MacLeod has good sport with the laconic reputation of Maine residents, but this arch humor, no matter how fond, will likely appeal most to MacLeod followers. Mystery Guild selection . (Apr.)

Library Journal