Death at the Spring Plant Sale - Anne Ripley

Death at the Spring Plant Sale  by Anne Ripley: Summary and Review. 

My Book Rating: 3.8/5

Living in Bethesda is slow and mundane. Bethesda is also 

expensive and so, naturally, it attracts high profile government workers like Walter Freeman. The only things that seem to ruffle life once in a while here are the events organized by Old Georgetown Garden Club- an association of rich wives, spinsters, and divorcees brought together by their common interest in gardening, some for pleasure and others for survival.

When Louise, a moderately famous television hostess, travels to Bethesda to cover a plant sale event organized by the club, she witnesses the murder of a woman with whom she had made acquaintances only a couple of hours ago. Catherine Freeman has been shot twice in the skull while coming from a night out with her husband, Walter.

But who would want to kill the very kind and soft-spoken Catherine? No, the shooter must have been targeting Walter. Only Walter has made many enemies with the harsh policies he proposed recently as the country’s fiscal board member. Adopting this view, the police offer more protection to Walter as the search for the shooter intensifies.

There are, however, some inconsistencies with this narrative that Louise and her friend, Emily, find unsettling.  Both friends had been nearby during the shooting, though they didn’t get to see the assailant.

Why were the Freemans riding with the car windows down at night? And why was the AC on? Did Walter hire someone to kill his wife? But why would he?

Detectives view this new perspective with a pinch of salt, not only 

because it sounds preposterous, but also because they don’t want a woman telling them how to handle their business. What Louise doesn’t know is that Walter has already passed a polygraph test.

Noting that they are hitting a dead-end, and with hesitant advice from Louise’s husband, the two women decide to widen their suspects list. Only then do they realize that many people might have wanted to kill Catherine, either working together, or solo.

There’s Sophie Chalois and Reece Janning who have been separately sleeping with Walter, but one does not know about the other.  There’s Meg Durrance and Phyllis Ohmalcher who hate Catherine, for she always takes the first place in gardening competitions and gets the most cash out of plant sales.

Word about Louise and Emily’s snooping soon spreads around the neighborhood, and everyone is suddenly uncomfortable. It doesn’t help that the woman holds a small but significant reputation for crime busting in her own hometown in Virginia. And while they may have nothing to do with Catherine’s murder, everyone has a skeleton in their closet that might be uncovered by Louise’s intense curiosity - skeletons that can cause unnecessary disturbances in the hitherto peaceful neighborhood.

   

Continuing with her search against all this opposition, Louise puts her life and that of Emily’s family in jeopardy. But she presses on and eventually meets face to face with Catherine’s shooter- except that it’s the person she least suspected.

My take

Ann Ripley writes in an easy-flow language, while adding bloom to banalities of life. I, for one, never thought gardening was such an interesting endeavor.

The author paints her characters fully, and the plot is solid, without excessive coincidences and the vagueness associated with most crime thrillers. While tackling a serious situation, the story is full of light moments, and this eliminates tension, allowing the reader to appreciate the close bonds between some characters, the Bethesdan climate, flowers (yes, flowers!), buildings and streets, and food.

I definitely look forward to reading more Ann Ripley books.

My Life in Prison- John Kiriamiti

My rating: 4/5

A former Kenyan criminal's encounters during the post-colonial era

After various unsuccessful attempts to escape prison; faking insanity, attacking warders, and even trying to commit suicide, Jack Zollo decides that enough is enough. Though full of hatred, pain and and regrets, adopts a positive attitude towards his life and also tries to change the lives of his counterparts. 


Now, during the process of "rehabilitation", things go haywire. Tribalism and hatred thrives among the inmates and the warders because of poor prison administration under Sergeant Kagi. The institution turns into a massacre zone where death is nothing new. The existence of a cannibal within makes it even worse. 

Zollo is ready to handle whatever cometh his way- as long as his best inmate friend and comforter, GG, is by 
his side. 


Through this true story, the author explores the influence of Kenya’s political tensions in the 1970s on prison environments. Readers are taken directly to the shoes of prisoners. More importantly, one gets to learn that the socio-dynamics surrounding prisoners are not very far from things that exist in the outside world; except for the fact that prison situation is more condensed and intense. 

Apart from warning criminals and prospective criminals against their ways, the writer expresses his 
dissatisfaction in the way correction facilities are run Kenya. The harsh mistreatment at Naivasha Maximum 
Security Prison, he says, only makes a criminal tougher and more dangerous. He also educates us, the public, on how we can contribute towards helping those who 
have dipped themselves into the crime pit: "I know what they need: Love and forgiveness from their 
fellow men." 

This book is definitely worth a read.

I’ll Be Home Late Tonight – Susan Thames

Book Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

"Time comes when you get to choose between what you create and what you are given"

Susan Thames explores the unique relationship between a teenage girl and her mother, as the latter drags her young one into a journey that threatens to tear two apart but, in a way, also brings them even closer. Set in the 1960s, the book delves widely on the topics of motherhood, growth, and later on racism.

After June’s husband abandons her for a rich woman, she too decides to vacate her mother’s house and travel to anywhere that she and her daughter will find it comfortable enough to stay in. Years earlier, her tiny family had moved in to her mother’s with the hope that her salesman hubby would soon find a better job and get a better home for the family- a hope that continued to dash away with time.

Lily, from whose point of view the story is told, seems to be the only one who admires both  parents and her grandmother, despite their many flaws: The grandma, though full of love and warmth, daydreams about angels once in a while, and has attempted many times to jump from the attic and the high-rise windows of her house.

And June is an excessively nagging wife who complains about everything bad and downplays every good her husband does.  We also realize later that she is a whore who would go the mile to sell her 14-year-old daughter to prostitution. To be fair, however, poverty - and Lily’s obsession with men- were still going to lead her into the sex trade anyway, with or without her mother’s intervention.

In their journey, Lily and June run into relatives who are ready to accommodate them, but June always messes up in one way or the other and the two are sent parking. Far away from “home” and  money running out, the two turn into wooing men not only for money, but also for a place to take shower and sleep.

Despite acting snobby at times and thinking rather too maturely, Lily is still a child inside: She wants to go to school, make friends, play, and date her age mates.  When they manage to stay long enough in a place, Lily does make a few friendships- friends who are tough enough to ignore the girl’s outward meanness and look at the vulnerable personality inside her. But soon, all friendships are abandoned as she and June make another journey.

Lily finally realizes that her life is doomed as long as she continues to follow her mother’s aimless travel. She plans to escape from June, never to see her again. But where would she go? To a father who she still loves but who has rejected her? To her deranged grandmother who has refused to pick her calls ever since she and mummy left her shouting stark naked at the parking lot? To the relatives who kicked them out after June slept with one’s husband and introduced the other’s son to drug abuse?

Fortunately, one part of Lily’s personality comes to play at the right time and puts a short break to their suffering: Lily has a surprisingly warm heart for colored people - in fact too warm for her mother’s comfort. Unlike June, Lily refuses to perceive racism as a “normal” thing, and so tries to fight it in her own way.

While on one of their bus trips to nowhere in particular, a row ensues between the bus driver and a black woman. Lily stands in to defend the woman, leading to both ladies being ordered to leave the bus. Fearing that she will lose her daughter again, June follows suit, but with lots of bitterness, for her daughter has just wasted their expensive bus tickets.

It turns out that the black woman is looking for an assistant in her small restaurant business. Ignoring  June’s racist attitude, she welcomes mother and child into her house. At last, Lily is proud that, for once, she created her own choice rather than dragging along in June’s.

Even though troubles and disagreements between mother and daughter continue arising once in a while, Lily and June seem to have resigned to the fact that one is nothing without the other. And  for now, at least, they have a roof to sleep under. And June has a constant job with an employer who neither cares about what color she believes in, nor whom she has sex with.

I’ll Be Home Late tonight  reminds parent that LOVE and RESPONSIBILITY only work best when they go hand in hand.