Slugfest

Dirty Business Mystery #4

by Rosemary Harris

When Paula Holliday agrees to exhibit at a legendary flower show she finds herself kneedeep in the sometimes humorous jealousies, rivalries and egos of the "show circuit." Then a body is found floating in the river and she realizes she accidentally holds the key to the victim's identity and the reason for the murder. And the murderer realizes it too.

Genres: Mystery, Cozy Mystery, Fiction, Gardening

276 pages, Paperback

First published March 31, 2011

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

ROSEMARY HARRIS has worked in marketing for Crown Publishers and American Express Travel Related Services and as a producer for Disney/ABC and WNET. She lives in New York City and Connecticut.

Series:
* Dirty Business Mystery

Reviews

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Landscaper, Paula Holliday, is hired in to sell a local artist’s yard art at a small garden show. A persistent gate crasher is chatting her up when the wails of a sabotaged entrant call all hands on deck. She’s left holding the bag (as in, the gate crasher’s backpack) and the plots begin to grow exponentially, thereafter.

The suspicious death of a longtime night maintenance worker sets things off on a run, shortly followed by that of said gate crasher. Fingers point at easy scapegoats, but of course, Paula does not agree. With a cast of situational new characters, she sets her sights on proving innocence, while finding the guilty. A nice play down to the actual culprits, neither on my list.

As always, a fun, easy day read. Enjoy the current events & name drops tossed in. Hoping for more.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this series! This last one I didn't love quite as much as the first three, probably because it was set at a conference in New York and none of the supporting characters from the other novels were present, which made me feel vicariously lonely. But still an entertaining read!

[Allison Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't realize while I was reading that this was the last book in the series. At least she went out with a bang. Enjoyable setting, mystery and characters. Sorry that we won't see any more of them.

[Ann Kingston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great story!!!

I really enjoyed the story and most of it was fun!!!😁
I do think you need someone to proofread your work. 🤔 Each time there was an error, it took me out of the story.😕

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had already read this before. It started out with the main character trying to get into a flower and plant snow. From there a murder occurs and several mishaps for some of the participants. Several suspects come to light.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

happy to have found a new to me mystery series. Now I have to read the previous books.

[Ellen Dark · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay, but the bad guy came out of the blue. I guess that means it was a good mystery?

[Terri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well done. Love the characters and the quirks, some bro g characters. I wish there were a bunch more of these books. I can’t Find much activity if the author after this book. Makes me Sad.

[Katie McKenny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thought it was boring

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slugfest
~Chestnut Hill Books
(27)
The nitty gritty of a flower show, August 24, 2012
By Ellen Rappaport (Florida)
This review is from: Slugfest (Paperback)
"Slugfest" proves once sand for all that Rosemary Harris knows how to write and write well. This 4th in her dirty business series with adventuress Paula Holliday pulled out all the stops. From the get go the excitement never let up. The characters both new and the regulars we've grown to expect worked together as a team in following and searching out the clues.

It all begins when Paula takes on the request of being a vendor at a New York city flower show. This flower show, however, appears to have the Javits curse. I've never been to a flower show until now. R. H. brought me into the flower show along with Paula providing vivid details of the vendors and arrangements of all the booths. How they were set up, what they were selling, the history of this particular flower show...and then there's Rolanda "Fort" Knox. From Paula's first encounter with Rolanda a relationship begins to form. I can see this character becoming a part of Paula's "team" in future dirty business books.

A charming young man, Garland, needs to get into the flower show to meet with someone. Why and who goes unanswered but it is so important to Garland that he leaves his backpack with Paula in the hope that he will return for it. Try as he may Garland can't get past Rolanda. Not yet anyway.Does he finally get in to meet with this unknown person? Time will tell...but I won't.

Lucy, Paula's BFF, is out of town for now and so Paula will be using her apartment conveniently located near the flower show. Paula meets J.C. Kaufman, one of Lucy's neighbors. J.C. is a bit more than stand offish in the beginning but as the story evolves so does another new friendship. J.C. has Paula's back. J.C. is another character that I feel may have an ongoing part in future dirty business books.

All in all I can only say that I have been given so many reasons to have enjoyed this book by the author. The characters continued to evolve and as they did they were worked into a pattern that had Paula's back. Babe wasn't in this particular book but that's ok. Paula was not on her main turf. The story was written so well that it invited me to continue reading and to look forward to each new chapter. The short chapters are perfect for me.

I highly recommend this book and this series to all mystery & cozy lovers.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gardener and amateur sleuth Paula Holliday journeys to a New York flower show for what she thinks will be a restful weekend smiling at people and exhibiting the found art sculpture of a reclusive artist. Before the exhibition even opens, a security guard dies in an apparent tumble down an escalator. The next day, a young man who entrusted Paula with his backpack is found floating face down in the river.
Well, the more elaborate the garden, the more pests you have to overcome. This flower show has some big ones, and even the new insecticide on display, Slugfest, will take care of all of them.
Garden pests are the least of Paula’s problems.
Before long, she’s trying to stay afloat in a whirlpool of sabotage, angry exhibitors, and even angrier cops. Nothing seems to have a reason, but everyone seems to have an ax to grind. To make matters worse, when Paula stays in her friend’s apartment, she discovers Lucy has no curtains in her bedroom windows and the neighbor across the street likes to critique her underwear…and that great red dress.
The plot works like roots in a garden, developing slowly and unseen until they finally burst to the surface and blossom. There are several subplots here, and Harris gives them plenty of time to develop and intertwine before bringing them to light.
Harris writes great loopy characters and hilarious descriptions, but may actually have a little too much fun here (The American Graffiti-style epilogue mentions twenty characters, a few I didn’t really remember). Some of the vignettes distract Paula from the deaths at hand a little longer than I like, fun though they are. And crusty downstairs neighbor J.C. does help Paula battle the bad guy while she adds local color. So does Roland “Fort” Knox, the security guard with an eye for ID badges.
All the subplots and characters give Harris room to use jump cuts to build suspense, but that techniques might work better in third person than in Paula’s first person point of view. One chapter break near the end feels unnecessary and breaks the rising tension that Harris has worked to develop and hurts the tension that has been building so nicely.
As always, Harris wraps all the chaos up logically and efficiently with her trademark humor and gives us justice and plenty of laughs along the way.

[Gerald Weaver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slugfest Romps in Fields of the Classic Detectives.

I grew up reading Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain and of course Arthur Conan Doyle. I was a bit of snob about not even being able to read Ross Macdonald, Ruth Rendell, Earl Stanley Gardner or even Agatha Christie. My crime and detective writers had to have an edge, a literary bent, and be a bit cynical. Now, I have to admit Rosemary Harris into my pantheon of detective writers, while asking, “Where has she been all my life?” I apologize for not finding her sooner, and I intend to make it up by reading everything she ever wrote.

The Harris heroine in Slugfest is Sam Spade in heels and a dress, with a better sense of humor, and a highly observant and deeply insightful point of view. Like a Hammett detective, the Harris sleuth is not a genius of deductive reasoning, but has an unerring sense for where the answers may lie and the same courage to simply insert herself into the mix in order to see what floats to the surface. This novel moves at the pace of the classic noir detective stories and also with the same high level of surprises.

Her other characters crackle with the same flash of reader recognition and with strong brush strokes. Lest one be tempted to say they might be caricatures, I suggest that you simply look around you, or pick up the newspaper. Harris sees us, and she knows our type. We are propelled through a New York City we at once know and understand we will never know. And there is humor here, not at the Carl Hiaasen level, which would make the book a comedy, but enough to add an interesting spice to the mystery.

Finally, someone once said that a book works if you feel you want to know the writer. This may be noir fiction, of the funny and insightful variety, but it also sparkles with a feminine appeal that makes men want to meet the author and women want to be like her. She seems at once to be funny, humble, compassionate, alluring, intelligent, passionate, and a bit off beat. I will re-read Slugfest and will also get and read the rest of Ms. Harris oeuvre.

[Ruth Hill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once in a while, I read a mystery book that just does not capture my attention and imagination the way I hoped it would. I never see it as the author's fault--I just see it as one of those things. Unfortunately, this is such a book. No doubt it is well-written and has a good mystery story to it, but I found myself and outsider and uninvolved. I just could not connect with the story nor the characters.

The first problem is possibly the setting. I have virtually no interest in flower shows, so maybe I shouldn't have picked it up in the first place. Clearly, one would not think that a heinous crime would be connected with such a docile setting, but indeed it is in the book. Sometimes I can look past the setting, but I just was not able to in this book for some reason.

I will say that I suppose I got a glimpse into what a flower show is, and I don't think any of the characters in the book had ever experienced so much action at a simple flower show. That made this book somewhat intriguing, and I might find that a reread would make me enjoy it more. I don't think I fully understood and appreciated some of the terminology and events in the book, so this is something I am indeed open to.

I am grateful that the profanity was mild and that there were no sex scenes. There certainly are unexpected issues and the typical "who done it" interest. The author writes fairly well, but I was unable to engross myself in the story. My recommendation would be that if you have an interest in flowers and mystery books, this may be the book for you. And since this is in a series, maybe I missed out by not reading the other books in the series. I wish I could give it a higher rating because it is truly not a bad book, and it is clear that many people enjoy it. I just didn't happen to be one of them.

I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated, and all opinions are 100 percent mine.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s always a good thing to discover a new series that you really enjoy. A while back, I reviewed the third Dirty Business Mystery, Dead Head by Rosemary Harris, I immediately picked up the first book, Pushing Up Daisies and made sure to keep my eyes open for new installments in the Dirty Business series. I devoured Slugfest on my recent vacation.

Paula Holiday left New York City for the peace and quiet of small-town Connecticut. She opened a landscaping business and she’s getting by, making friends with her neighbors, and occasionally stumbling across mysteries. Slugfest takes her back to NYC for The Big Apple Flower Show. An oddball local artist who produces sculptures from rusty metal pipes, old bicycles and other found items, is too much of a recluse to man a booth at the show, so Paula is selling sculpture and visiting her old haunts. Her plans for a peaceful week in the city get derailed when mysterious pranks — the so-called Javits Curse — get out of hand and bodies start turning up.

Slugfest is great addition to the series. It’s still Paula, but she’s away from her small-town neighbors, even if she’s still surrounded by flowers and plants. She tries to help out a couple of kids she meets at the show and ends up the new BFF of a mobster’s wife. There’s a killer on the loose and she’s being spied on by a Peeping Tom who criticizes her fashion choices:

(Note to self: permanently borrow red dress from Lucy. I will never be lonely as long as I’m wearing this. How did I get to be this age without knowing every woman needs a red dress?)

The twists and turns keep you turning pages, but what really makes this a fun read are the big personalities at the flower show. From the mobsterand the high school kids to the elderly benefactress and the tough-as-nails security guard, these people are funny and sweet and sometimes a little scary. It made a great poolside read and I will definitely be looking for the next Dirty Business mystery.

[Suspense Magazine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remember that old adage, “No good deed goes unpunished?” I wouldn’t blame Paula Holliday, the likeable protagonist in Rosemary Harris’ mystery, “Slugfest–The Flower Show Murders,” if she allowed that thought to fester in her brain for a while. Paula runs Dirty Business Garden Solutions in Springfield, Connecticut, and often hangs out at a local eatery called the Paradise Diner. As does an eccentric artist, Dunstan Primo who fashions imaginative garden sculptures out of leftover lawn furniture, auto parts, and other assorted odds and ends. When Primo is offered the opportunity to exhibit his “art” at the prestigious Big Apple Flower Show, Paula is enlisted to manage his booth. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Paula could help out a friend, and also make some contacts for her own garden business.
In no time at all, Paula is up to her pretty neck in a rash of vandalisms at the show. Plus, she’s gotten herself on the wrong side of flower show security guard Rolanda Knox, a large woman whom Paula has privately nicknamed Fort. Then the body of another security guard is found at the show. Closely followed by the body of a young man Paula befriended before the opening of the flower show. What the heck is going on? Who knew that horticulture could be so…cutthroat?
Rosemary Harris has crafted a light, funny mystery that’s well-plotted and populated with a great cast of characters. She keeps readers guessing until the very end of the book. “Slugfest” may be a Dirty Business Mystery, but for me, it was good clean fun!
Reviewed by Susan Santangelo, author of “Marriage Can Be Murder” for Suspense Magazine

[Nora-adrienne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slugfest
By: Rosemary Harris
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Copyright April 2011

Paula Holliday is doing a good deed. She’s agreed to help a friend by acting as Exhibit manager for a reclusive artist in her town. She’s headed for New York City and is expecting a laid back weekend, selling a few pieces of garden art at the show and maybe see some great sample garden displays while she has the chance.

Little did she know that she would be neck deep in horticultural sabotage, murder and something called The Javits Curse. Along the way she makes friends with a Mafioso’s wife, various and sundry exhibitors, and her friend Lucy’s downstairs neighbor, and a couple of NYC Homicide Detectives.

Rosemary has raised Paula’s character to new heights by taking her out of her Connecticut home and plopping her back in the Big Apple. A place she left, so that she could follow her dreams.

This is the fourth book in the Dirty Business Series and looking into my Crystal Ball, I see a long and happy run for this series.

FTC Full Disclosure – This book was sent to me by the author in hopes that I would review it.

Rosemary Harris can be found hiding out at http://rosemaryharris.com/ and also http://www.facebook.com/RosemaryHarri...

[Allison Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rosemary Harris hits another one out of the ballpark with "Slugfest."

“Slugfest”, the fourth in the Dirty Business Mysteries, opens with Paula Holliday back in her old stomping grounds of New York City. She is there to help a friend and reclusive artist from Springfield, CT by selling his artwork at a legendary Northeast flower show. Little does she know that the next four days will involve murder, mayhem, The Javits Curse, and a cast of diverse and zany characters.

I have been a fan of Rosemary Harris’ since her first in the series, “Pushing Up Daisies”. I prefer the books that take place in her new hometown, but this was a refreshing look at Paula in action in NYC.

Rosemary Harris has a great style of writing and always presents fresh mysteries. I did feel that a few of the most suspenseful parts were a little rushed, but overall it’s a really good story. I found myself laughing out loud several times. I hope to see Paula's new friends J.C. and Rolanda “Fort” Knox again, perhaps visiting Paula in Connecticut?

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

#4 in the Dirty Business Mysteries. Series protagonist, Paula Holliday takes a break from her normal Connecticut milieau to exhibit in the Big Apple Flower Show, held at the Wagner Center (surely a fictional stand-in for the Javits Center)in New York City.
The series is an interesting concept but time will tell if it has legs; in any event, the logical change of venue can only add to the life of the series.

Dirty Business Mysteries - Takes Paula Holliday Manhattan for the Big Apple Flower Show. Held at the Wagner Center, the show gets off to a bumpy start when an overnight worker dies after falling down an escalator and breaking his neck. When Garland Bleimeister, a show attendee who left his bag with Paula at her booth, turns up dead in the Hudson River, it's clearly a case of foul play. Paula helps security guard Rolanda Knox investigate possible suspects, including high school botanist Jamal Harrington, convention director Kristi Reynolds, and various exhibitors. The New York City locale is a refreshing change of scene.

[Marge · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the 4th book in the Paula Holliday gardening series. I have read the previous books and enjoy this refreshing mystery series.

This entry takes the reader behind the scenes at a top flower show. We are introduced to quirky exhibitors, fun and multi-dimensional exhibit hall staff and quite possibly a new love interest for Paula. The story unwinds at a pleasing pace, the murder does not happen at the beginning of the book which allows the reader to enjoy Paula and the show scene. As more characters are introduced along the way, the story goes off on several tangents making it impossible for me to determine the murderer. That in my opinion is an excellent mystery. It was fun seeing Paula back in New York and out of her comfort zone of her small town business. Rosemary Harris effortlessly entwines murder with the world of gardening.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the author with the hope that I would post an honest review.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can you say a murder mystery is likeable, I wonder? Well, I guess I just did. This is the first Rosemary Harris I've read, and it does make me want to seek out her earlier novels. Brash, witty, and very fast paced, it is populated by an assortment of colorful characters. Since I do street outreach, the seeming runaway, his girlfriend, the kid trying to make good...well, they tugged at my heartstrings overmuch. And I think another mystery writer might have been more dismissive...you know the sort: "okay, we need a body here, let's introduce a character and then have a murder". Harris doesn't do that, and it is a nice thing that she doesn't.
I'm an obsessed gardener, so I might have liked more obsessive garden chat, but even those who don't like to plunge their hands into compost will probably enjoy this one. The Epilogue is intriguing, who doesn't want to know exactly what happens to everyone?

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paula Holliday has gone to New York City to the Flower Show. Babe, the diner owner and dear friend, has convinced her to show a friend's recycled found garden sculpture. The town "eccentric" is too shy to go himself and since Paula is a New York native it seems the perfect set up ... until bodies start piling up and Paula is knee deep in another adventure.

Paula is staying at her friend Lucy's apartment and has many experiences with that ... a downstairs neighbor and a peeping tom that gives fashion advice.

Paula has some interesting neighbors at the flower show and sees how people interact when their aren't enough power outlets. It is indeed a cut throat world.

This was a great book with lots of misleads and dead bodies, but in the end the good guys win and the bad guys end up beaten, which is what we want in our urban noir stories, isn't it?

[Jane C. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't really get into this one, maybe because there wasn't enough about the flower show & plants. (I've felt this way about so many cozy mysteries. There's just not enough content about its sub-genre, ie. garden mystery, bookstore mystery etc.) I skimmed so much of the book that I found myself not knowing what was going on. Backtracking didn't help.

I did really enjoy one exchange between two exhibitors. A Zen gardener tries to console a woman by saying 'Sometime plants die, it's a circle.' She replies "Listen, grasshopper, circle this. Don't talk to me about impermanence. I'm not shoppping for enlightenment right now, so why don't you just curry back to your litle hut and rake the sand."

[Louise Pledge · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the fourth in the Dirty Business Mystery Series and has the same clever and witty dialogue as the others. Paula Holliday. the heroine in the series was formerly a NY media exec, who has now turned to gardening, opening a business called... you guessed it, "Dirty Business".

In Slugfest, She's serving as an exhibit mgr to help a friend out at a large garden show at NYC's Wagner Center. While she expected this to be a great vacation, this is Paula Holliday we're talking about. Death and mystery follows her wherever she goes. There are several surprises before we finally learn who's responsible for all the garden show mayhem. The same fun friends Paula's romped with in the other books are standing by her again. I hope you're reading all of them!

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gardener Paula Holliday is back in New York, helping out a friend by selling his sculpture at the Big Apple Flower Show. Strange accidents seem to be plaguing the prestigious show, and Paula meets a number of people who are having problems with the show or with each other. There's a charming young man who's desperate to get a message to someone inside, a smart, tough security guard, a mobbed-up entrepreneur whose wife's veronicas died. Then the deaths start. The plot gets a little wonky at the end, but you'll keep reading.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slugfest (Dirty Business Mystery #4) by Rosemary Harris

I love a series and this one just keeps getting better. In Slugfest Paula Holliday is in NYC working a garden show for an artist friend of Babe’s. She doesn’t have her regular crew to help her when things start to go wrong. But she makes do with some new friends and Lucy. I suck at solving mysteries and this one was no exception. But it was fun watching Paula and pals figure it out.

I’ll definitely be looking for the next installment.

[Becky H · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished this book. I love that it was set outside of her little town and we got to meet new and different characters. Its a fun and fast read. I was able to finish it in one sitting. I don't know when her next book in this series is coming out but I will continue to read these books because I really like the main character and enjoy learning new things about gardening even though I am totally not a gardner. Other than that it was a fun read, good mystery and fun characters.

[Jeannie and Louis Rigod · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our gardening sleuth, Paula Holliday is helping her artist friends out by manning an exhibit booth at the annual Big Apple Flower Show in New York City.

From the first setting up day, when a body is found on the escalator, to the last thrilling scene at the ending of the show, you will be breathless following the trail (a slug trail?) behind Paula. Why behind? Because, Ms. Harris knows how to keep us readers one step behind.

This was a very colorful and interesting novel.

[Dawn Cronk]

I got the chance to read and review Rosemary Harris’s fourth book in the Dirty Business mystery series. I have to say this book was so fun, lots of silliness, and a cast of the most colorful characters ever. Paula Holliday returns to be in a flower show helping to man an exhibit booth. The shenanigans that happen are just hilarious. I had not read any of her previous books, but will be doing so very soon. I think this book would be a great read for the summer on the beach.

[Chi Dubinski · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the fourth "Dirty Business mystery," landscaper Paula Holliday is in NYC for the Big Apple Garden show. She's agreed to man a booth for a sculptor friend, but when some of the exhibits are vandalized, students from a local high school are blamed. Along the way she befriends a mob wife with than overprotective husband and a security guard whose mission is to keep miscreants out of the show. Funny!

[T · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it. That pretty much sums it up. Paula is working a garden show for a friend we haven't met in previous books. It takes a long time to get to the mystery and realization that there has been foul play. So lots of build up of characters that were ok, not great, and nothing from my old favorites.