Review
Praise for Michelle Wan:
"Not since Nero Wolfe has such a fragrant combination of orchid lore and suspense found its way into a mystery novel."
— Booklist
"A writer to watch."
— The Globe and Mail
"A cracking good story, one that's certain to keep a reader turning pages .... The description of meals . . . will leave one's mouth watering....The generous descriptions of rural French life mesh superbly with a story that should keep the reader guessing whodunit until the very last pages."
— The Record (Kitchener-Waterloo)
Praise for The Orchid Shroud:
"With The Orchid Shroud, Michelle Wan hits her stride as a leading Canadian mystery writer. . . . Wan shows a mastery of mystery and an unmatched flair for the genre."
— Edmonton Journal
"Not since Nero Wolfe has such a fragrant combination of orchid lore and suspense found its way into a mystery novel."
— Booklist
"A writer to watch."
— The Globe and Mail
"A cracking good story, one that's certain to keep a reader turning pages .... The description of meals . . . will leave one's mouth watering....The generous descriptions of rural French life mesh superbly with a story that should keep the reader guessing whodunit until the very last pages."
— The Record (Kitchener-Waterloo)
Praise for The Orchid Shroud:
"With The Orchid Shroud, Michelle Wan hits her stride as a leading Canadian mystery writer. . . . Wan shows a mastery of mystery and an unmatched flair for the genre."
— Edmonton Journal
Product Description
The fourth book in the "Death in Dordogne" series, Kill for an Orchid spans two hemispheres and three centuries, taking readers on a suspenseful journey of greed, obsession and murder.
Life is finally coming together for Mara and Julian in their idyllic corner of the French countryside. They are even contemplating marriage! However, their happy prospects hit a nasty bump when Véronique, Julian's not-so-ex-wife, turns up unexpectedly, threatening blackmail and trouble.
Trouble indeed: Veronique is brutally murdered, and the local gendarmes' top suspect is Julian himself. However, a mysterious list of names found among Véronique's effects leads Mara to ask if these individuals are linked to the crime. But how? And why? As Mara seeks answers to these questions, Julian has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to journey to China to solve the riddle of his mystery orchid. Is it the legendary Yong Chun Hua — the flower of eternal youth? To his peril, he soon learns that he is not alone in his quest. As he treks through the mountains of Sichuan piecing together the orchid's dark secret, he soon finds himself in a race for survival against a determined and deadly adversary. In France Mara, comes face to face with the horrendous truth behind Véronique's death. A world apart, these two must somehow help each other to thwart a cunning and ruthless killer.
Life is finally coming together for Mara and Julian in their idyllic corner of the French countryside. They are even contemplating marriage! However, their happy prospects hit a nasty bump when Véronique, Julian's not-so-ex-wife, turns up unexpectedly, threatening blackmail and trouble.
Trouble indeed: Veronique is brutally murdered, and the local gendarmes' top suspect is Julian himself. However, a mysterious list of names found among Véronique's effects leads Mara to ask if these individuals are linked to the crime. But how? And why? As Mara seeks answers to these questions, Julian has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to journey to China to solve the riddle of his mystery orchid. Is it the legendary Yong Chun Hua — the flower of eternal youth? To his peril, he soon learns that he is not alone in his quest. As he treks through the mountains of Sichuan piecing together the orchid's dark secret, he soon finds himself in a race for survival against a determined and deadly adversary. In France Mara, comes face to face with the horrendous truth behind Véronique's death. A world apart, these two must somehow help each other to thwart a cunning and ruthless killer.
About the Author
Michelle Wan was born in Kunming, China, in the middle of an air raid. She has lived in India, the US, England, Paris, Harare, and Rio de Janeiro. She and her husband, a botanist, travel regularly to the Dordogne to photograph and chart wild orchids. She is the author of three previous novels in the "Death on the Dordogne" series, Deadly Slipper; The Orchid Shroud, and A Twist of Orchids.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
1
It was spring in the glorious Dordogne.
God’s country, Julian Wood called it. He paused in his labours to raise his eyes to a sweep of wooded uplands and high blue sky, then threw his weight onto the spade, turning and lifting soil oozing with life. Mid-fifties, tall and lanky with a salt-and-pepper thatch, a long jaw framed by facial hair in need of trimming, he was a man at peace. A man who had long ago fled the damp cold of England to put down roots in this sunny, rugged corner of southwest France. He loved this place, its fields, its woods, its rumpled hills, its robust earthy wines and especially its hardy, good-humoured farming folk. Sadly, they were giving way to paler generations removed from the land and anxiously trying to squeeze out precarious livings in a département where good jobs were hard to find. A chronically underemployed landscape gardener himself, Julian was sure he contributed to the regional unemployment statistics.
But that was not a problem for today. Today the wisteria dripped like purple rain from the eaves of the houses, irises raised elegant flags against old stone walls, the air was heady with smells. Today was a day to set the old-fashioned annuals that he favoured—wallflowers and pansies—into the warm bosom of the earth.
Until Mara came out of the house with the morning’s post.
“Mostly bills,” she called. “Yours, I’m afraid.”
Julian sighed, relinquishing his spade and his view of sky and forest. Nothing was perfect.
“Can we talk?” said Mara Dunn.
They were seated at the terrace table. He had his glasses on and was sorting through his mail.
“Fire away.” He glanced at a notice from his bank. “Merde.”
“Well,” said Mara, leaning forward on her elbows. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.” And when he did not respond, she added, “About us.”
“Eh?”
Mara sighed. She was a small, slim French Canadian with a determined chin and large, intelligent eyes that were at the moment darkly serious.
“You and me. Life together. Do we stay as we are?” She paused, giving him time to absorb the question. “Or do we move on to something—well—more permanent?”
It was risky, where she was going. They were such different people. She, an interior designer, was accustomed to moving space and objects around, shaping everything to a timetable, a budget and a plan. Julian was happiest out of doors, planting and pruning, or rambling through woods and meadows looking for orchids, going nowhere in particular. They had come to the Dordogne by different paths, had met four years ago under peculiar circumstances, and had gone on to live together just as peculiarly in her house in Ecoute-la-Pluie with two dogs and no clear notion of where this would take them. And therein lay the difficulty. Mara needed to know where they were going. Julian did not seem to care.
Now he looked up. Stay as they were? More permanent? Was there a difference?Well, yes, Julian had to conclude, it was a bit awkward, this living out of two places. His cottage in Grissac, twenty minutes down the road (for sale; no buyers, not even any prospects to date), was where he still kept most of his belongings and where he dropped in occasionally to check on things, to pick up the odd phone message (he still kept his land line going; he refused to get a portable) and to collect mail that had not been forwarded to him at Mara’s. These were his Times Out, when he wandered through his poky darkened rooms, touching his books (of which he had a great number), when he gave in to a secret desire to sit idly in his tattered leather armchair (it did not match Mara’s decor), savouring with a sense of poignancy the remembrance of a time when he had actually lived there. But what exactly did she mean? For starters, could he bring his books? And his armchair? His eyes fell on a letter bearing a Canadian stamp. For a moment he thought it must be for her, but no, it had been addressed to him, care of his publisher, his name clearly typed, and redirected to him.
“Sure.” His melancholy features broke into a boyish, lopsided grin. Life was good. He had no objection whatever to things continuing as they were for as long as she liked. “I’m open to that.”
“You are?”
“Of course.” Curious, he tore the envelope open. The letter it contained, postmarked March 25, 2007, had taken thirteen days to reach him.
Dear Mr. Wood,
I don’t know how to contact you directly, so I am asking your publisher, Éditions Arobas, to forward this letter. I have just seen your book on wild orchids of the Dordogne. In it you show a drawing of an unknown Slipper orchid that you call Cypripedium incognitum and that you believe grows locally. I happen to be writing a book on the life of my great-great-great-grandfather, the 19th-century plant hunter, Horatio Kneebone, whose expedition diaries I possess. Amazingly, one of them includes a sketch and description of an orchid that closely resembles your artist’s drawing of C. incognitum!
Mara watched in bemusement as Julian’s jaw went suddenly slack.
Since Horatio had ties to the Dordogne, I think my ancestor might just hold the secret to the origin of this incredible flower. I plan to spend some time in your part of France researching Horatio’s “Dordogne Period,” and I would greatly appreciate a chance to meet you and talk further about what I’m sure is an area of mutual interest. If this suits you, please reply to the address or e-mail shown below.
Sincerely,
Charles K. Perry
“Julian,” she burst out, “you do understand I’m talking about marriage!” Immediately she said it she was sorry. It had come out all wrong, sounding like a threat.
“My God!” shouted Julian, whose heart had made a sudden leap.
“Don’t sound so appalled.”
“Appalled?” Julian’s eyes were starry. “I think it’s absolutely brilliant!”
“You do?” said Mara, quite surprised.
Mara said a little sourly after she had read the letter—she had just proposed, hadn’t she? And all he could think of was his orchid—“I don’t suppose he realizes you’ve never seen this flower of yours and that your only proof it exists is an old, very bad photograph and an even older embroidery?”
“Who cares?” Julian snatched the letter back from her and kissed it. “You read what Charles Beautiful K. Perry wrote: his ancestor’s orchid matches mine. There are diary entries on it. That means Cypripedium incognitum is not a phantom, Mara. It has a documented provenance.”
It was true that Julian had never seen, never touched, his mystery orchid. It was totally unknown to him and to the botanical world, for his considerable research had turned up nothing like it. That was what made it so special. It was the bad photograph, brought to him by Mara at their first meeting, that had started it all. The antique embroidery, which had turned up later, showed a clearer representation—a stunning if structurally anomalous flower with a bright pink pouch flanked by blackish-purple, extraordinarily long, twisted lateral petals, and three sepals—not the two normally characteristic of Cypripediums—of the same hue. Since then he had been driven to find it, if truth be known, had lusted for it with all the desperation of an addict. Was it an extremely rare, indigenous species that grew only in an isolated spot in the Dordogne? An import that had managed to survive and propagate? If so, from where, and what was the history of this amazing flower’s journey to his corner of southwest France? Now, out of the blue, he was actually on the verge of having his answer. All that remained was to find the flower itself.
So what was he doing sitting here? It was already April, things were blooming. He lurched involuntarily from his chair, propelled by the same old fear that always swamped him around this time, that a careless hiker or a bulldozer would wipe it out of existence. Worse, that someone else would find the orchid first. His unopened mail fell to the ground.
“You’re worried about Géraud, aren’t you,” Mara observed with perfect comprehension. Living with an orchid freak had taught her to read his moods according to the seasons—spring was always a fraught time—although she had yet to understand his passion. She often wished more of it would find its way to her.
“That poacher!” Géraud Laval was Julian’s arch botanical rival and, after Julian, the Dordogne’s next best orchidologist. A retired pharmacist, he was a temperamental old goat with hairy ears and a habit of shouting. He also had a nasty reputation for acquiring orchids any way he could, which included the unthinkable crime of digging them up in the wild. “He’s an outright menace.” Julian paced restlessly to the edge of the terrace.
“Quite a dilemma,” said Mara with a touch of sarcasm. “Which to do first? Answer Beautiful Charles Perry’s letter, or rush out to find your flower before Géraud does?”
6 April 2007
> Dear Charles,
I’m astounded, intrigued, fascinated, gobsmacked—what can I say? Frankly, the search for C. incognitum has taken over my life...
It was spring in the glorious Dordogne.
God’s country, Julian Wood called it. He paused in his labours to raise his eyes to a sweep of wooded uplands and high blue sky, then threw his weight onto the spade, turning and lifting soil oozing with life. Mid-fifties, tall and lanky with a salt-and-pepper thatch, a long jaw framed by facial hair in need of trimming, he was a man at peace. A man who had long ago fled the damp cold of England to put down roots in this sunny, rugged corner of southwest France. He loved this place, its fields, its woods, its rumpled hills, its robust earthy wines and especially its hardy, good-humoured farming folk. Sadly, they were giving way to paler generations removed from the land and anxiously trying to squeeze out precarious livings in a département where good jobs were hard to find. A chronically underemployed landscape gardener himself, Julian was sure he contributed to the regional unemployment statistics.
But that was not a problem for today. Today the wisteria dripped like purple rain from the eaves of the houses, irises raised elegant flags against old stone walls, the air was heady with smells. Today was a day to set the old-fashioned annuals that he favoured—wallflowers and pansies—into the warm bosom of the earth.
Until Mara came out of the house with the morning’s post.
“Mostly bills,” she called. “Yours, I’m afraid.”
Julian sighed, relinquishing his spade and his view of sky and forest. Nothing was perfect.
“Can we talk?” said Mara Dunn.
They were seated at the terrace table. He had his glasses on and was sorting through his mail.
“Fire away.” He glanced at a notice from his bank. “Merde.”
“Well,” said Mara, leaning forward on her elbows. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.” And when he did not respond, she added, “About us.”
“Eh?”
Mara sighed. She was a small, slim French Canadian with a determined chin and large, intelligent eyes that were at the moment darkly serious.
“You and me. Life together. Do we stay as we are?” She paused, giving him time to absorb the question. “Or do we move on to something—well—more permanent?”
It was risky, where she was going. They were such different people. She, an interior designer, was accustomed to moving space and objects around, shaping everything to a timetable, a budget and a plan. Julian was happiest out of doors, planting and pruning, or rambling through woods and meadows looking for orchids, going nowhere in particular. They had come to the Dordogne by different paths, had met four years ago under peculiar circumstances, and had gone on to live together just as peculiarly in her house in Ecoute-la-Pluie with two dogs and no clear notion of where this would take them. And therein lay the difficulty. Mara needed to know where they were going. Julian did not seem to care.
Now he looked up. Stay as they were? More permanent? Was there a difference?Well, yes, Julian had to conclude, it was a bit awkward, this living out of two places. His cottage in Grissac, twenty minutes down the road (for sale; no buyers, not even any prospects to date), was where he still kept most of his belongings and where he dropped in occasionally to check on things, to pick up the odd phone message (he still kept his land line going; he refused to get a portable) and to collect mail that had not been forwarded to him at Mara’s. These were his Times Out, when he wandered through his poky darkened rooms, touching his books (of which he had a great number), when he gave in to a secret desire to sit idly in his tattered leather armchair (it did not match Mara’s decor), savouring with a sense of poignancy the remembrance of a time when he had actually lived there. But what exactly did she mean? For starters, could he bring his books? And his armchair? His eyes fell on a letter bearing a Canadian stamp. For a moment he thought it must be for her, but no, it had been addressed to him, care of his publisher, his name clearly typed, and redirected to him.
“Sure.” His melancholy features broke into a boyish, lopsided grin. Life was good. He had no objection whatever to things continuing as they were for as long as she liked. “I’m open to that.”
“You are?”
“Of course.” Curious, he tore the envelope open. The letter it contained, postmarked March 25, 2007, had taken thirteen days to reach him.
Dear Mr. Wood,
I don’t know how to contact you directly, so I am asking your publisher, Éditions Arobas, to forward this letter. I have just seen your book on wild orchids of the Dordogne. In it you show a drawing of an unknown Slipper orchid that you call Cypripedium incognitum and that you believe grows locally. I happen to be writing a book on the life of my great-great-great-grandfather, the 19th-century plant hunter, Horatio Kneebone, whose expedition diaries I possess. Amazingly, one of them includes a sketch and description of an orchid that closely resembles your artist’s drawing of C. incognitum!
Mara watched in bemusement as Julian’s jaw went suddenly slack.
Since Horatio had ties to the Dordogne, I think my ancestor might just hold the secret to the origin of this incredible flower. I plan to spend some time in your part of France researching Horatio’s “Dordogne Period,” and I would greatly appreciate a chance to meet you and talk further about what I’m sure is an area of mutual interest. If this suits you, please reply to the address or e-mail shown below.
Sincerely,
Charles K. Perry
“Julian,” she burst out, “you do understand I’m talking about marriage!” Immediately she said it she was sorry. It had come out all wrong, sounding like a threat.
“My God!” shouted Julian, whose heart had made a sudden leap.
“Don’t sound so appalled.”
“Appalled?” Julian’s eyes were starry. “I think it’s absolutely brilliant!”
“You do?” said Mara, quite surprised.
Mara said a little sourly after she had read the letter—she had just proposed, hadn’t she? And all he could think of was his orchid—“I don’t suppose he realizes you’ve never seen this flower of yours and that your only proof it exists is an old, very bad photograph and an even older embroidery?”
“Who cares?” Julian snatched the letter back from her and kissed it. “You read what Charles Beautiful K. Perry wrote: his ancestor’s orchid matches mine. There are diary entries on it. That means Cypripedium incognitum is not a phantom, Mara. It has a documented provenance.”
It was true that Julian had never seen, never touched, his mystery orchid. It was totally unknown to him and to the botanical world, for his considerable research had turned up nothing like it. That was what made it so special. It was the bad photograph, brought to him by Mara at their first meeting, that had started it all. The antique embroidery, which had turned up later, showed a clearer representation—a stunning if structurally anomalous flower with a bright pink pouch flanked by blackish-purple, extraordinarily long, twisted lateral petals, and three sepals—not the two normally characteristic of Cypripediums—of the same hue. Since then he had been driven to find it, if truth be known, had lusted for it with all the desperation of an addict. Was it an extremely rare, indigenous species that grew only in an isolated spot in the Dordogne? An import that had managed to survive and propagate? If so, from where, and what was the history of this amazing flower’s journey to his corner of southwest France? Now, out of the blue, he was actually on the verge of having his answer. All that remained was to find the flower itself.
So what was he doing sitting here? It was already April, things were blooming. He lurched involuntarily from his chair, propelled by the same old fear that always swamped him around this time, that a careless hiker or a bulldozer would wipe it out of existence. Worse, that someone else would find the orchid first. His unopened mail fell to the ground.
“You’re worried about Géraud, aren’t you,” Mara observed with perfect comprehension. Living with an orchid freak had taught her to read his moods according to the seasons—spring was always a fraught time—although she had yet to understand his passion. She often wished more of it would find its way to her.
“That poacher!” Géraud Laval was Julian’s arch botanical rival and, after Julian, the Dordogne’s next best orchidologist. A retired pharmacist, he was a temperamental old goat with hairy ears and a habit of shouting. He also had a nasty reputation for acquiring orchids any way he could, which included the unthinkable crime of digging them up in the wild. “He’s an outright menace.” Julian paced restlessly to the edge of the terrace.
“Quite a dilemma,” said Mara with a touch of sarcasm. “Which to do first? Answer Beautiful Charles Perry’s letter, or rush out to find your flower before Géraud does?”
6 April 2007
> Dear Charles,
I’m astounded, intrigued, fascinated, gobsmacked—what can I say? Frankly, the search for C. incognitum has taken over my life...
