Something in the water

While vacationing in Maine, Professor Peter Shandy confronts a poisonous potpieMassachusetts horticulturalist Peter Shandy is famous for his rutabagas, but he comes to Maine with a loftier plant in mind.

Specifically, he wants to size up the world-renowned lupines of Frances Rondel, a nonagenarian whose legendary flowers are even more beautiful in life than they are in myth.

Shandy is bitterly jealous, but finds a major distraction in the dining room of the country inn where he's staying.

He may grow wretched lupines, but no gardener can solve a murder like Peter Shandy.The corpse belongs to the late Jasper Flodge, a local loudmouth with a toupee and a sizeable gut.

Shoveling down the last bites of a chicken potpie, Flodge clutches his chest and falls dead.

Suddenly with more to do than stopping to smell the lupines, Shandy must ask himself: Which Maine cook has the bad taste to flavor chicken with cyanide?