Rosemary Harris's series about gardening sleuth Paula Holliday ("Dirty Business Mysteries") is a great read about some fun characters. Paula is very well realized as a former film tycoon (so to speak) coming to small-town Springfield, Connecticut to start her own gardening business -- planning and physically planting each customer's gardens. The author really knows her plants and garden layouts. She has said that she is part of the Philadelphia Flower Show team and spends a lot of time with that.

The character of Paula eminates quirky, plucky, and intelligent. When she ends up with a mummified body of an infant in the first in the series Pushing Up Daisies she ends up solving a very old disappearance/murder and a very fresh one, too. There seem to be some sparks flying between her and the police detective ("Mom") Michael O'Malley.  This should be fun to follow in the continuation of the series.

Rosemary Harris is an Agatha and Anthony nominated author who is very active in Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America. She has been the driving force behind the Mystery PopTop Stage at two annual American Library Association conferences.

Pushing Up Daisies is followed by The Big Dirt Nap, Dead Head and her newest title Slugfest.  You will enjoy this snappy reads!