A Prickly Puzzle for a Southland Gardener
Someone’s murdering the officers of the Culver City Cactus Club in Nathan Walpow’s new gardening mystery. The president has been unceremoniously poisoned with a Euphorbia abdelkuri, then the vice president is found crucified on a tree outside his greenhouse, a crown of thorny Euphorbia milii on his head. The secretary of the club, Joe Portugal, wonders if he’s next and why.
Is it the work of a disgruntled member? A serial succulent killer? Or German cactus smugglers and poachers, evening a score with crusading UCLA botanist and club president Brenda Belinski? Brenda was Joe’s buddy and he’s going to find out who killed her, if he has to visit every suspect succulent collector on the Westside.
Gardening mysteries had their beginnings with Ann Ripley in her books “Mulch” and “Death of a Political Plant.” Walpow brings the genre to the West Coast with short, snappy Chandleresque dialogue, familiar places and plants that are most appropriate. While Ripley’s Louise Elderidge may be worried about her peonies, Walpow’s Portugal is concerned about his Euphorbia viguieri.
The author knows his succulents. Walpow has his own large collection and is a past president of the Sunset Succulent Society, which sounds suspiciously like the inspiration for the fictional Culver City Cactus Club.
I could be wrong, but I think I also recognized a number of his “fictional” succulent gardens and maybe even a few of his characters. I think we’ve visited many of the same collectors, although I don’t recall any of them coming after me with a baseball bat-sized succulent limb, as happens to our protagonist.
Our seemingly underqualified and reluctant hero--who has no idea of how to hold a gun and is terrified of wasps--is in and out of greenhouses until he finally accumulates enough clues for a dramatic confrontation. I was sure I had it figured out--the poinsettia people were behind it all--but I turned out to be wrong.
The killings make for a good mystery and, along the way, Portugal finds time to admire many handsome succulent plants, which are described in more detail in the very back of this book, a bonus for the plant lover.
