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Name: Amazon.com: The Night-Blooming Cereus (The Theo Bloomer Mysteries) eBook : Hess, Joan: Kindle Store
Rating: 4.2 (32 reviews)

Joan Hess

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The Night-Blooming Cereus (The Theo Bloomer Mysteries) Kindle Edition

by Joan Hess (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.2 32 ratings

Book 1 of 2: The Theo Bloomer Mysteries

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Retired florist Theo Bloomer goes to Israel to rescue his niece from terrorists in this engrossing mystery.

On the shores of the Dead Sea, Dorrie Caldicott is coming into bloom. A spoiled graduate of the finest prep schools on the Atlantic Seaboard, she went AWOL during a tour of Israel and put down roots in a kibbutz. Her mother simply won’t stand for this kind of behavior, and it falls to Dorrie’s uncle Theo Bloomer, a retired florist who’s as meek as a daffodil, to bring the girl home. But in the sands of Israel, this gentle flower will be forced to take root or die.

Theo has hardly arrived at the settlement when a pair of murders makes it unlikely he and his niece will ever make it home. Under threat by terrorists, the police, and the attentions of a few dozen intellectual farmers, Theo and Dorrie must find the killers if they wish to escape the Holy Land alive.

Anyone who has envied Nero Wolfe’s orchid collection will find himself right at home with Theo Bloomer, a globetrotting florist who—like Rex Stout’s most famous detective—would prefer to be at home with his plants. Readers won’t want to miss joining Theo in this unique series by Joan Hess, one of the funniest mystery novelists on the planet.

The Night-Blooming Cereus is the 1st book in the Theo Bloomer Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Competent, fresh and often funny, the story makes the most of its exotic background and the dry wit of its unlikely hero. A flourishing beginning.” —Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Joan Hess
“Joan Hess is the patron saint of comic mystery.” —Sharon McCrumb, author of The Rosewood Casket

“Ms. Hess displays a consistent and rare skill. . . . She plays fair; she knows exactly when to lighten the mood [and] when to spill some blood.” —David Dawson, The New York Times, on Mortal Remains in Maggody

About the Author

Joan Hess (b. 1949) is the award-winning author of several long-running mystery series. Born in Arkansas, she was teaching preschool when she began writing fiction. Known for her lighthearted, witty novels, she is the creator of the Claire Malloy Mysteries and the Arly Hanks Mysteries, both set in Arkansas.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01F4MJJP0
Publisher ‏ : ‎ MysteriousPress.com/Open Road (July 5, 2016)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 5, 2016
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2749 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 265 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #684,837 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #4,680 in Traditional Detective Mysteries (Kindle Store)
- #6,541 in Amateur Sleuth Mysteries (Kindle Store)
- #6,644 in Traditional Detective Mysteries (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.2 32 ratings

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Joan Hess

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Oh dear, this seems so personal. I was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas, luckily a blue dot in a red state. Did the normal kid stuff, avoided the long arm of the law. I earned a BA in art from the U of A, and a MS in early childhood development from Long Island University. I was teaching art in a preschool (pretty clever combination of the degrees, right?) when a friend suggested I write a romance novel. I wrote ten unpublishable ones before I realized I needed a splash of blood and a slather of humor in my prose and turned to mysteries. The Claire Malloy series came first, followed by the Maggody series. A third series, the Theo Bloomer mysteries, sputtered out after two novels, alas (it was going to be my "travel" series, requiring me to take tax-deductible business trips to do the research).

Now I live in Austin, Texas (also a blue dot, but a bigger one), a ten-minute drive from my absolutely adorable twin grandchildren Jack and Annabelle, soon to be three years old. Please don't ask me if they're identical. Their gracious mother frequently allows me to drop whatever I'm doing and dash over to babysit. And I do.

I'm currently working on my forty-fifth (or so) mystery, a Claire Malloy based on my brief experience in the jury pool. When I'm not babysitting, that is.