Menacing Groves — John Sherwood

From day one of her Italian garden tour, botanist Celia Grant's sleuthing intuition tells her that the trip will be no bed of roses. For starters, Lady Carstairs's camera has been stolen, someone's trying to drug Celia, and two fellow tourists, the seedy South Afridan actors Paula and Jimmy Vincent, are travelling under false names.

Amidst the formal beauty of the great Tuscan palazzi and their magnificent gardens, Celia watches and waits, and at the Villa Salvadori, her forebodings for further disaster are bountifully fulfilled. A double murder and a kidnapping leave the tour group shattered. The Italian police are off and running -- but on the wrong foot entirely. And Celia, baffled by a bold killer's brilliantly planned strategy, begins to fear for her own safety.