Final Rothenberg Botanical Mystery Passion, greed, deceit, and murder surface when plant pathologist Claire Sharples discovers a skeleton buried beside the Kern River and is drawn into events of a half-century earlier. The Tumbleweed Murders explores the musical, geological, and agricultural history of California’s Central Valley as it moves between the present and flashbacks to the past. The nature of the land as well as the character of its inhabitants dictate this evocative story. Oil, cotton, and country music in Bakersfield are important elements in Claire’s unraveling of the mystery of the lost love of Jewell Scoggins (the Cherokee Rose, who sang with the Texas Tumbleweeds fifty years before). Claire is helped by her colleague, the enigmatic and attractive Ramon Covarrubias, and by his eccentric, reclusive journalist cousin Yolanda, and these relationships become important to her future. But all their lives are put in grave danger by Claire’s quest, because there are secrets someone has killed to protect. “Rebecca Rothenberg remains with us, her many fans, in appreciation and memory. She has left both the mystery novel and California much better off than when she first found and fused them together in the alembic of first-rate detective fiction.” --Dr. Kevin Starr, State Librarian of California Rebecca Rothenberg was the author of the Claire Sharples Botanical Mystery series. The first, The Bulrush Murders, was nominated for the Anthony and Agatha Awards, and was named as one of the Top Ten Mysteries of 1992 by the Los Angeles Times. After her untimely.death in 1998, her friend and colleague, Taffy Cannon (author of the Nan Robinson series and the Agatha and Macavity Award-nominated Guns and Roses) completed the manuscript of The Tumbleweed Murders. Ms. Cannon lives and writes near San Diego, California. Visit rebeccarothenberg.com and taffycannon.com for more information, including downloads of songs by Becky Rothenberg, information on her music and how to order a CD, and the first chapter of The Tumbleweed Murders. Read how this book came about! Read a review of this book from Book Browser! Read a review of this book from the Los Angeles Times ! Read a review of this book from I Love a Mystery! Back to New and Recent books

The Tumbleweed Murders A Claire Sharples Botanical Mystery Rebecca Rothenberg, completed by Taffy Cannon ISBN 1-880284-43-X 240 pages, paperback, $12.95 For ordering information, click here, phone (800) 662-8351, or order this book now!