"The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree": Book Review

"The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree"
by Susan Wittig Albert
Berkley Prime Crime, 290 pp., $24.95
Reviewed by David Marshall James


It's almost summer, eighty years ago, in Darling, Alabama (fictitious, but not far from Harper Lee's hometown of Monroeville).

The town's residents are understandably worried about the economy, but the garden club members (Dahlias) are putting as pretty a face as possible on the courthouse square, while trading and canning fresh vegetables and fruits from one another's yards, when they're not swapping "slips" of ornamental plants.

Yes, they're thrifty, but hyacinths feed the soul.

There is a double feature (one silent movie, one talkie) at The Palace theatre, and some of the more fortunate locals own radios: otherwise, the principal entertainment in town is gossip, facilitated by the widespread use of telephone party lines.

Then, of course, there's the beauty parlor grapevine, contributing to a veritable communication arbor along with the "Dahlia-vine."

Admittedly, there's much to stay abreast of during these waning days of springtime.

First, a convict manages to escape a nearby workfarm-- and the ensuing bloodhounds.

Then, there's trouble at the town savings & loan. Too many unsecured loans, yes; moreover, someone's apparently been embezzling.

Also, the ghost of one of the town's matriarchs, Cornelia Cartwright, is seemingly much agitated, renewing her search for a secret that's been literally long-buried. For a wraith, however, she's making quite a clatter, hitting rocks with her spade.

At the top of the Hit Parade of Darling Doin's is the death of the town tart-- she's been curfew-climbing up and down the trellis to her second-floor boardinghouse room, like Cheetah in the Tarzan flicker at The Palace.

Although Bunny has come to a predictably bad end, Dahlias Lizzy and Verna-- who have been lunching with her on the courthouse grounds when she has not been counter-jumping at the cosmetics display of LIma's drugstore-- take up her cause of death, launching an investigation of their own.

The Dahlias are also busy-- enter cafe proprietress Myra May to the rescue-- clearing one of their own who has been implicated in the embezzlement.

Before too much of the plot is revealed, suffice it to say that prolific mystery author ("China Bayles" series, "Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter" series) Susan Wittig Albert delivers the goods like the pro that she is in this inaugural "Darling Dahlias" novel.

The atmosphere, setting, and characters overlay nicely; nothing and no one seem out of place. Furthermore, the murder mystery plot doesn't seem forced into the mix. Lizzy and Verna are concerned about Bunny because she was a friend.

Wittig's homage to a time when such clubs were at the height of their presence (as social and mentoring outlets) and service, in such small Southern towns as Darling, provides a blooming premise for this fresh series.


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