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Informationen zum Autor Alyse Carlson Klappentext Roanoke! Virginia! is home to some of the country's most exquisite gardens! and it's Camellia Harris' job to promote them. But when an out of towner turns up dead! she discovers there's no good way to spin murder… Camellia Harris has achieved a coup in the PR world. The premier national magazine for garden lovers has agreed to feature one of Roanoke's most spectacular gardens in its pages-and world-famous photographer Jean-Jacques Georges is going to shoot the spread. But at the welcoming party! Jean-Jacques insults several guests! complains that flowers are boring! and gooses almost every woman in the room. When a body is found the next morning! sprawled across the azaleas! it's almost no surprise that the victim is Jean-Jacques. With Cam's brother-in-law blamed for the crime-and her reporter boyfriend! Rob! wanting the scoop-Cam decides to use her skills to solve the murder. Luckily a PR pro like Cam knows how to be nosy… Chapter 1 "Incoming!” Cam Harris pushed off her kitchen floor, propelling the wheeled kitchen chair she was sitting in to the sliding panel that hid the dumbwaiter. She opened it a hair and yelled to the kitchen upstairs, “Ready!” and shut it again, knocking off the “Over the hill” magnet her sister had recently given her. She heard her neighbor and best friend, Annie Schulz, lowering her treasure, which was how Annie referred to anything she lowered via dumbwaiter, then tramping down the back stairs to Cam’s apartment. The turn-of-the-century house, gifted to Annie when her grandmother had moved to a retirement home, was split into two apartments, upper and lower. The living arrangement was a perfect compromise for the yin-yang best friends. The two had tried to live together before, but Annie’s free-form approach to order drove Cam crazy; she’d grown tired of photos drying over the bathtub and finding every bowl in the house dirty because Annie had a wild hair and tried out four new cupcake recipes at once. In the current living situation, they got all the bonding time they wanted, but with absolute boundaries about whose space was whose. Annie let herself in, as was her habit, and plopped into a chair opposite Cam. “Caffeine?” she asked, blowing a stray curl out of her face. Cam rolled her eyes, stood, and poured coffee into a travel cup for Annie, then walked over and opened the dumbwaiter to inspect the goods. “Frazzled morning?” “Just a little wrestling with the juicer Petunia left. First batch was too pulpy, and I had to take apart the stupid thing to clean it.” “I thought all you had to do was bake and deliver,” Cam said. “Yes, but juice squeezed yesterday would not be fresh- squeezed, would it? No cream?” “Do I ever have cream? I’ve got that nonfat hazelnut stuff.” Annie made a face. “You, my friend, are missing the point of cream. It’s about texture.” They had an ongoing disagreement about coffee supplements. “Are you ready?” “I am. Just one more load?” Annie nodded and stood. “But let’s get this to the car first.” She went to the dumbwaiter and grabbed the first of the food. Annie was helping Cam, albeit indirectly. Cam’s sister, Petunia, was catering a several-day event Cam was coordinating for her employer, the Roanoke Garden Society. Petunia’s restaurant, Spoons, bought sweets from Annie’s cupcake store, Sweet Surprise, and Petunia had convinced Annie to trade delivery assignments. Petunia would trans- port the desserts that went with lunches and suppers if Annie would deliver breakfast, since a baker needed to begin work early anyway. Cam would have done it, but she needed delivering herself. She was saving for a new Mustang, but purchase was at least six months away. Normally she rode her bicycle, except when she needed to look professional, which was the case with this painstakingly orchestrated fe...
