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FARM FRESH AND FATAL, the second Penny Weaver traditional mystery novel by Judy Hogan
Publication date: October 1, 2013. Pre-sales now! See below.
Trade paperback: 978-0-9895804-0-3 $15.95
Ebook: 978-0-9895804-1-0 $2.99
When Penny Weaver joins the new Riverdell Farmers’ Market to represent their neighborhood garden, squabbles break out among the farmers about their places. The county poultry agent tries to sort them out before Nora, the market manager, arrives, infuriating her. Penny discovers that there may have been racism behind her friend Sammie’s almost not being accepted to sell her flower bouquets. After the third market, the poultry agent is found dead of food poisoning, apparently from drinking the punch provided by Nora. That and her fights with him cause her to be arrested. Meantime Penny is skeptical of her daughter’s new sponging boyfriend, and her husband Kenneth confesses to being homesick for Wales.
Penny and Sammie work to uncover the real poisoner and to release Nora. Derek, the lead detective and Sammie’s husband, wants them to stay out of it. The poultry agent was unpopular with the quirky farmers, with the exception of the genetically modified seeds man and the baker/jelly maker. Penny and Sammie discover that the poison was black nightshade, but which farmer grows it and who put it in the poultry agent’s punch? The state ag department threatens to close the market if the case isn’t solved.
Praise for Farm Fresh and Fatal:
Farm Fresh and Fatal features an appealing protagonist, an intriguing background, and well-realized characters. Readers will enjoy these characters and empathize with their successes and failures. In the tradition of Margaret Maron. –Carolyn Hart, author of Dead, White, and Blue.
In Farm Fresh and Fatal Hogan serves up a complex dish that is flavored with community and family drama. It is spiced with intrigue, finished with mystery and delivered right off the vine.
–Lyle Estill, President, Piedmont Biofuels and author of Small is Possible
Judy Hogan delivers again in her fearless Farm Fresh and Fatal. Through a story built on a strong foundation of research she tackles difficult issues, all the while giving us a first-rate read. And that authentic voice her readers have come to expect shines on every page.
--Lane Stone, author, Tiara Investigations Mystery series.
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Judy notes that she likes to take up social issues in her mysteries, and this one takes up genetically modified foods. She knows even more now about how dangerous they are in our food supply, using herbicides like Roundup and pesticides built into the seeds. The only safe food now seems to be organically grown.
Opening page:
Monday Morning, April 1. A fight broke out during the second market, but the opening day of the first farmers’ market in Riverdell went relatively smoothly. The third market was when the murder occurred.
Penny and Kenneth were searching madly for snails in the lettuce when Nora Fisher, their new market’s manager, drove her yellow pickup in and parked near their garage apartment. “You go talk to her,” Kenneth said. “I’ll keep checking the romaine. The red lettuce was the hardest. All those curlicues.” He was moving slowly on hands and knees down the rows they’d cultivated with the rototiller only the night before.
When Penny caught up with her, Nora was out of her truck and standing at the chain link fence that kept their neighbor Leroy’s chickens in the orchard. “These White Rocks yours, too, doll?” Nora wore faded blue bib overalls over a man’s white shirt rolled up at the sleeves. Her closely cropped curly brown hair gleamed in the sun.
“Hi, Nora. Welcome to Greenscape. The chickens are Leroy’s, but he’s part of our operation. He has to work today. Mostly he has them like this, out in the orchard, to pick bugs and fertilize the peaches and apples.”
“How exactly does it all work? Andy lives next door?”
“Yes, he got us started when he became Shagbark’s first sustainable ag agent about three years ago.” She pointed to where she and Kenneth had been working. “Our vegetable garden takes up most of his and Jan’s backyard.”
“Who’s the guy working in the lettuce?”
“My husband Kenneth.”
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To pre-order: $17 to pick up signed copy (includes tax) to Judy Hogan, PO Box 253, Moncure, NC 27559-0253. $20 to have signed copy shipped. Shipping before October 1, hopefully. For more info: call 919-545-9932 or judyhogan@mindspring.com
Judy Hogan bio:
Judy Hogan helped found and was first president of the N.C. Writers’ Network (1983-7), as well as founding Carolina Wren Press (1976-91) and co-editing Hyperion Poetry Journal (1970-81). She has published five other poetry books and two prose works with small presses. She has taught creative writing since 1974. Her first mystery, Killer Frost, finaled in St. Martin’s Malice Domestic contest, appearing from Mainly Murder Press in 2012. Farm Fresh and Fatal is the second novel in her Penny Weaver series. She will be reading throughout the Triangle area from her two new books this fall. She farms and writes in Moncure, N.C.
web: judyhogan.home.mindspring.com
judyhogan at mindspring.com
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