In Harris's cute second dirty business mystery (after 2008's Pushing Up Daisies
), landscape designer Paula Holliday is thrilled when her TV producer friend, Lucy Cavanaugh, suggests an all-expenses-paid getaway for the two of them to the Titans Hotel in Connecticut wine country. Paula even wangles a Springfield Bulletin
gig to write about the “titan arum” (aka the corpse flower) on display under glass in the hotel lobby because the bloom smells so bad. When Lucy fails to appear and the dead body of new acquaintance Nick Vigoriti turns up on the hotel's loading dock, Paula considers returning home. Det. Stacy Winters's investigation persuades a TV reporter that Paula is “a person of interest” in Nick's murder, but Paula is more worried she might become the killer's next victim. The nifty puzzle that unfolds involves Native American casinos, mysterious Russians and that stinky slow-blooming flower. Author tour. (Feb.)
