...Tra-la... Have nothing to do with the case. Mikado - WS Gilbert Laburnam Walk Photo of Temple Newsam House, courtesy of TripAdvisor I usually bedeck my books with flowers, both wild and cultivated. More often than not, they do indeed have nothing to do with the case. They’re part of the setting, marking the seasons, differentiating between town and country gardens, hedgerows, meadows, moors, and woods. Sometimes, though, they have other purposes. In Heirs of the Body , the 21st Daisy Dalrymple mystery (just reissued by Minotaur in trade paperback), I use a pleached walk of laburnam to suggest the threat of poisoning. The seeds are deadly. In fact, I use the walk for a different purpose, and another plant is used later in the book to poison one of my characters. In another book, I killed a victim with oleander he himself had nurtured and cherished in his conservatory. Perhaps the most fun I’ve had with flowers was when I used them to indicate character and...