'Gardening Can Be Murder' Book - A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach - Nov. 20, 2023

I don't think I've read a mystery novel since the “Nancy Drew” books of my long-ago childhood, though I will confess to having watched more than a few who-done-it TV series over the years, most of them from the BBC. 

But I never noticed how many mystery writers, from Edgar Allen Poe to Agatha Christie, incorporated elements of the garden into their tales of intrigue. 

Today's guest picked up on all the clues in their stories, and many others, and put them together in her own latest book, titled “Gardening Can Be Murder.” In each of her many books, “New York Times” bestselling author Marta McDowell digs into the way that plants have influenced some of our most cherished writers, including Beatrix Potter, Emily Dickinson, and Laura Ingalls Wilder. Now she's focused her latest one on mystery writers, and how they, too, have often drawn influence from the garden and its plants.