Pretty Poison — Joyce Lavene; Jim Lavene

Meet Peggy Lee: botanist, detective's widow, and owner of The Potting Shed, an urban gardener's paradise in downtown Charlotte. Mild winters keep the store thriving all year round, but at least one person in the city has colder intentions...

It's another busy fall day for Peggy. First she gives a quick cafe lecture on African violets, then has a minor bike accident involving a good-looking Saturn driver... and finally reaches her shop only to find a dead man sprawled face down across one of her seasonal displays, apparently done to death with a garden shovel.

He's Mark Warner, one of the wealthiest men in town--and also one of the biggest philanderers. The police have a local homeless man pinned for the suspect, but Peggy has her doubts. Soon her efforts to exonerate him have her raking through the evidence and digging up secrets--and somebody's not happy about it.

And then there's the enormous Great Dane who seems determined to adopt her--and Peggy doesn't even like dogs. Good thing that Saturn driver is also a veterinarian...