Perfect Poison — Joyce Lavene; Jim Lavene

Meet Peggy Lee: part-time forensic botanist, detective's widow, and owner of the Potting Shed, an urban gardener's paradise in downtown Charlotte. While the summer heat is stifling her shop's business, death is always in season...

While attending a funeral in nearby Badin, Peggy learns of more bad news: A diver performing routine work on the local dam is found dead. Then, days later, a woman's body is recovered from the swimming pool of a Charlotte home. When the bodies surface, so do the clues--including an unusual plant wound into the woman's hair. The police call forensic botanist Peggy Lee to the scene, but her findings only raise more questions. What do these two deaths have in common? And how did duckweed end up in a pool?

Peggy is happy to lend her green thumb to the investigation, but this may be the one time digging for a killer leaves her empty-handed...