A botanist specializing in blight, wilt, and rot, Claire Sharples has just the right credentials for investigating the dirty business of homicide. Back for a third outing in this highly acclaimed mystery series, the thorny-tempered detective puts down roots in the High Sierras of central California and finds fertile ground for old growth trees, die-hard environmentalists, and a bumper crop of murder. Calochortus invenustus subspecies westii, or the Slate Mountain mariposa tulip, is an exquisitely beautiful wildflower also called the "shy tulip" because of its rarity. For the Friends of the Redwoods, a group of environmentalists in a small California community, the shy tulip is their last hope for saving a precious mountain forest from loggers - and they're counting on Claire Sharples to find this endangered bloom among the groves of giant sequoias. Already suffering from a stunted love life and a lack of cross pollination herself, Claire is afraid the hunt for the tulip will lead to a painful encounter with her former boyfriend, flower expert Sam Cooper. But Sam isn't the only one Claire should fear. A flowernapper has stolen the plant before Claire can verify its growth amid the timber stand, while her jaunt into the woods ends with the shocking discovery of a mortally injured environmentalist...