Whether you enjoy gardening or not, Maryann Weber guides you through a richly detailed landscape providing visions of botanical delight as well as gruesome murder. Her dialogue and characters portray people you can picture in the setting she creates.

Val Wyckoff, a landscape designer employed by a local nursery, but is looking to work independently. She finds the dead body of a not-so-friendly co-worker in her front yard, with her gardening pruners used as the murder weapon. Her personality is strong, not taking much guff from anyone, and she has a not-so-perfect-past, which gets leaked to the press. During this turmoil she is helping her sister with her two nephews due to her sister's physical illness and other family stressors. You also see her completely relaxed and charming with her closest friends.

If Val doesn't "help" solve the crime, she could be held responsible. The small, close-knit, town would like to see her, the outsider, arrested.

Maryann Weber does a good job of getting Val involved - not too worried about "digging in and getting her hands dirty." She makes "Summerkill" very entertaining, enjoyable and you want to find out what happens. You also want to see much more of Val Wyckoff in future books.