The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree (Berkley Prime Crime)

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    This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, andincidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

    PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reaction to the recipes contained in this book.
    Copyright © 2010 by Susan Wittig Albert.

    All rights reserved.
    No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
    BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group
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    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Albert, Susan Wittig.
    p. cm.
    eISBN : 978-1-101-18838-5
    1. Young women—Crimes against—Fiction. 2. Murder-Investigation-Fiction.
    3. Gardening—Societies, etc.—Fiction. 4. Women gardeners-Fiction. 5. Treasure troves—
    Fiction. 6. Nineteen thirties—Fiction. 7. Alabama—Fiction. I. Title.
    PS3551.L2637D37 2010
    813’.54—dc22
    2010010033

    10987654321
    http://us.penguingroup.com

To my cherished herb and gardening friends,
who encourage me to keep my hands in the dirt
and my fingers on the keyboard.
The Darling Dahlias and I send you our love.

Author’s Note
    Darling, Alabama, is a fictional town that is located in a real place: the beautiful wooded hills of southern Alabama, about seventy miles north of Mobile, west of Monroeville, and east of the Alabama River. If you’d like a map of the town, please visit the series website: www.darlingdahlias.com . You’ll find other items of interest there, including: historical background of the 1930s, the period in which the series takes place; Depression-era recipes and household tips; and information about Southern gardens. I’ll be adding new material frequently, so please bookmark the site and visit often.
    A note about the language. When I was growing up in the 1940s, we lived on the outskirts of the African-American neighborhood in Danville, Illinois. At the time, my family called our neighbors and schoolmates “coloreds” or “colored folk” or “Negroes.” Later, when I was in graduate school at University of California, Berkeley, and took an active part in the Civil Rights movement, we called our friends “Blacks” and “African Americans”; “Negro” had become an ethnic slur. (I notice, though, that the 2010 census uses “Negro” because many older African Americans self-identify with the term.) This historical series includes language and social practices appropriate to the early 1930s in the rural South. These may be offensive to some readers. Thank you for understanding that no offense is intended.

    Susan Wittig Albert

Dear Reader,
    The author of this book has kindly asked us—the officers of the Darling Dahlias Garden Club—to write this letter to you. She wants us to let you know that we’ve read this story and agree with her