First, a big thank you to NetGalley and Timber Press for the opportunity to read this book.


As a longtime lover of murder mysteries and the poison trope, how could I not immediately be drawn to a title like "Gardening Can Be Murder: How Poisonous Poppies, Sinister Shovels, and Grim Gardens Have Inspired Mystery Writers"?

This book is so much more than poison and is everything from a reference guide to an excellent way to learn more about some of our favorite writers and characters. Each chapter looks over different aspects of the world of mystery novels. From Nero Wolfe's obsession with orchids to a description of foxglove and its life as a plant that can save or kill, each page is a glimpse into the depth of plotting.

It is so fitting in the final pages to use Margaret Atwood's quote about gardening and gardeners not being rational. How perfect to combine the world of gardening and murder in this book.

While a short book, it can feel quite dense at times. After all, there is so much packed in a book with fewer pages than many of the novels it references. It can feel at times that you are reading a textbook which is the only real downfall. I love the references and reading lists in the back of the book. There are so many sources and a perfect way to bring every reader to their next mystery!

McDowell clearly knows her plants and her mysteries. The writing was clear and the illustrations were lovely.

However, this read to me like a nicely edited list of occasions in which mysteries have featured gardening, or their authors have talked about gardening. The book never really came together for me beyond that. McDowell's greater point in assembling this collection was not apparent to me. I found myself skimming much of it, despite loving gardening and mysteries.

This is a really great read for gardening lovers. I enjoyed it and can think of a few friends to recommend this title to. Love the cover art as well! I hope to buy a physical copy at the publish date.

I love a good murder mystery and this focuses on the means of the murder, getting into the details on who used what and how it was cultivated. This was a fascinating look at different series where poison is used as well as what the gardens looked like. A well-researched reference book on gardens and their deadly inhabitants. Highly recommended for those wanting a little more detail on what can be used and where to find them in our favorite reads.

This was very interesting and I loved how many varieties of plants were included, as well as how diverse her choices were for the books she selected. She included books that are very old and some only recently released. I found a few books to add to my to-read list. However, the writing had a kind of textbook-y feel to it that made it tough for me to get into. And I would have preferred not having the Latin names for the plants. It threw off my flow and I'll never be able to remember those.
Helpful is the index of plants. Something to go to to help the reader make choices for their own gardens.

A love letter to horticulture, gardening, and the authors that both apply the concept in everyday life as well as in their books.

I absolutely loved this book and the way it’s sections were broken down as well as the information that was contained. Talk about an interesting, but still informative, read! The author has a way of writing that keeps the reader engaged while still giving the, a wealth of information, and that is a gift that I have found to be very rare these days. Can’t wait to get my hands on a hard copy and start recommending to anyone interested in the topics!

This certainly isn't your everyday read but it's interesting nonetheless. This book takes you on a wild journey learning about poisonous plants and the use of such beautiful instruments of destruction in stories. Bookworms, Plant and/or Gardening enthusiasts will surely enjoy this book.

Who knew gardening can be so deadly! This is an interesting and unique read, highlighting all the ways gardening has been used in various mysteries from Shakespeare and Agatha Christie to M.C. Beaton and Ruth Ware, using popular garden crime scenes, poisonous plants and flowers, and various gardening tools to create murderous crimes. Lots of fun.

Disclosure: An ebook was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review which I willingly provide below.

Books about books are one of my favorite things to read, which is why I chose to review this non-fiction book. "Gardening Can be Murder" explores the relationship between gardening and mystery novels, providing information, lore, and literary connections that are perfect for mystery readers.

McDowell generously shares her extensive knowledge of gardening, breaking down each facet before providing a book excerpt to illustrate that point. After reading this book, I have added so many books to my TBR list. This book covers everything from gardening detectives to poisonous plants. Each chapter explores the different components of a great mystery story: detective, setting, motive, means, clues, and suspects.

Writers commonly find inspiration in their daily lives, so this book would not be complete without sharing the gardening lives of our favorite mystery authors. For instance, I had no idea that Arthur Conan Doyle studied medicine and botany before writing Sherlock Holmes, or that Rex Stout, the author of the Nero Wolfe mysteries, had grown 192 varieties of irises.

This book deserves a place on any mystery reader's shelf, and once it is published, it will find a home on mine.

Marta McDowell's books are always engaging and well written. Her previous books have been biographies so this one takes a detour, exploring mystery novels that feature some aspect of gardening whether it relates to the plot, how the crime is committed or how it is solved. I have to confess that I found myself skimming some of it but I think that was because I am very familiar with the topic. I did discover some titles and authors that were unfamiliar.

Gardening Can Be Murder by Marta McDowell is a unique exploration of the connection between gardens and the mystery genre. McDowell, an experienced gardener and writer, delves into the many ways gardens have inspired mystery writers throughout history. From cozy mysteries to hardboiled detective novels, McDowell covers it all.

The book is organized in a way that is easy to follow, with chapters dedicated to specific themes such as poisonous plants, spooky groundskeepers, and garden settings. McDowell does an excellent job of including a variety of examples from classic literature to contemporary bestsellers, as well as real-life garden crimes.

The writing is engaging and informative, making the book accessible to both gardening enthusiasts and mystery fans alike. McDowell's own love of both gardening and the mystery genre is evident throughout the book, adding a personal touch to the exploration.

Overall, Gardening Can Be Murder is a fascinating and entertaining read that sheds light on a unique aspect of the mystery genre. McDowell's passion and knowledge make this book a must-read for anyone interested in gardening, mysteries, or the intersection between the two.

I've been a mystery fan for awhile, and I really enjoy books that give me bits of information I didn't know I wanted to know. This book gave me that. The "Means" chapters are especially good at breaking down specific plants and the influences there. But, I never really got to understand why any of it mattered. It felt like it was just information. I know a lot about Victorian gardens in relation to detective fiction, but how do those influences remain today? Why is it important that the gardening fashions influenced literature and vice versa? I missed the "so what" of the book. When it comes in the last chapter, it's not enough to make up for the rest of the book where that was my constant question. There were too many seeds that weren't tended as fully as I wanted them to be. I still liked the book on the whole. I certainly have more knowledge than I had before. The pace of the book is quick and easy to read, but I wanted more.

As a gardener myself, this book took me on a deep dive into not only my own garden but those around the world. I came away with a new record for my tbr and a new appreciation for the innocent looking ornamental plants that have been used as accomplices throughout the history of murder mysteries. If you like books about books, gardening tips, and a look at the motifs that examine good versus evil, this may be the book for you!

Fabulously fun! Wonderful, accessible read. Enlightening and challenging. Have many readers to recommend this to due to the tone balanced between cheeky and academic . Love it for gardeners, mystery lovers, and writers alike.

A unique read, it wasn’t quite up my alley. But for someone who is into this concept would definitely love this book. The author skips no beats, and articulates everything so well.

I’m unreasonably excited about Marta McDowell’s “Gardening Can Be Murder” — How many should I buy for Christmas presents? How do I convince my botanical book clubs (The Secret Garden Book Club at Ashton Gardens and Read Between the Spines of The Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix) to choose this as a selection? Will I be babbling to my fellow horticultural volunteers at the university about “oh, look! a “Helleborus niger” with white flowers” but we gardeners know that niger means black and that here “black” is about the poisonous tuber?

Obviously this is my perfect book, but Marta McDowell is also the queen of lacing literature with landscaping. I knew her work when my aforementioned book club chose her “Unearthing the Secret Garden” about Francis Hodgson Burnett’s plant inspirations. She has also written books about the gardens of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Beatrix Potter, Emily Dickinson, and the White House. Here she has gathered a wide compendium of authors, mystery books involving plants, wicked gardens, and botanical murder means (we gardeners can stab you with pruners, take off fingers with loppers, choke you with weed killer, or strangle you with floral wire, and then we have alibi shovels to bury you and let you become fertilizer).

The research that Ms.McDowell did is absolutely amazing and incredibly comprehensive. She could write separate books about Agatha Christie and Miss Marple (their trendy Japanese gardens of the early 1910s and the great exhibitions Ms. Christie might have attended) or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his creation Sherlock Holmes’s experiments with plant poisons. I think she must have been collecting literary landscaping stories for years. There are so many gardening mysteries I’ve missed, but thanks to the author, I’ve added them to my to-be-read list.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5 stars! This book is more than just for gardeners, too. I recalled that my love of mystery novels started as a teenager with Jane Marple and I was quietly absorbing facts like white-flowering silver fleece vine was a menace. Even non-gardeners have probably read enough about jimson weed/angel’s trumpet (an entire season of the cable series, “The Sinner” was based on a murderous child brewing tea from that plant) to know that it’s appearance in a story might be a clue.

Thank you to Timber Press and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review!

What an interesting read…hard to almost categorize if I’m being honest.

This isn’t a typical read in any sense. This book highlights the connections of some of the BEST writers utilizing gardening and horticulture knowledge to spin the most sinister mystery novels we have dubbed classics.

The visuals in this book gothically compliment the deadly plants beautifully and I would absolutely buy this for myself or as a gift, just because of the artwork.

If you like learning about deadly gardening plants and have a keen interest in mystery writing / writers and this history surrounding some of the greatest novels of all time, you will enjoy this book. I learned so much!

This is not my kind of book, so I really don't know what to write in here for a good review...
I thought to be a good kind-of-encyclopedia for the writers, who love to include dangerous plants in their stories. It must take a pretty good time to research all of this and this book only makes things easier! All the descriptions and such.

I would recommend this for writers.

As an avid gardener, Gardening Can Be Murder is right up my alley, and don't let the title fool you... Marta McDowell, our author, isn't teaching readers how to commit crimes with plants, but instead, she's highlighting the many writers and poets throughout the centuries who've tasked their fictional murderers with the knowledge to poison and penetrate their victims with ordinary garden plants. From Agatha Christie to Arthur Conan Doyle, so many of the greats in mystery fiction have done their research when it comes to the best flowers and grasses to add to a deadly tincture.

Each chapter walks readers through the vast and diverse world of botany and agricultural homicide. Gardening Can be Murder is set to publish on September 12, 2023, and I am so thankful to Timber Press for sending me an excellent advanced reader's copy.

Although this isn't my typical read, I really enjoyed this book. I've always been fascinated by deadly and poisonous plants so I figured this would be right up my alley. It explores the ways that authors incorporate plants and gardens into stories, during the present time and way back when. Whether they are used as plot points, like a toxic plant used to commit a crime, or part of a character's backstory, like the gardening hobby of a character investigating a crime. Or even as the scene of a crime, with a victim dying among flowers and bushes or a forest of trees. I think people take lovely settings like these for granted and the author has so many examples of stories with a horticultural twist.

Like SO many examples under every topic. There are numerous stories referenced that I've never heard of, casually lumped in with some of the most famous stories out there. I was excited when I saw the description of "The Turn of the Key" by Ruth Ware, one of my favorite contemporary authors. A poisonous garden figures heavily in that story, by the way, and is part of why I enjoyed that book. The chapter on the most common poisonous plants contains a great summary of each plant, which part of it is poisonous, and which books they feature in. That's one of the best aspects about this book, that it refers to so many other stories that you may be interested in, not just plants.

Now, I'm sure this book will draw comparisons to "Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities." But it doesn't compete with that book; rather, it's the perfect compliment. If you loved that one, you will love this one. And if you know someone who loves to garden but doesn't read, this book would be the perfect gift to get them reading more. And then they're on their way to becoming a murder mystery addict like so many of us - works for me!