Green Grow the Dollars by Emma Lathen

Why would anybody commit murder because of a tomato? Tomatoes are something that we take for granted; they are in spaghetti sauce, ketchup, salads, and many other things which we eat everyday. If you are, however, a large company which sells seeds, tomatoes are a big business. Such was the Vandam Nursery & Seed Company which was on the brink of the release of the seeds for the Numero Uno tomato. This was a biennial tomato plant which would produce many more tomatoes than the annual one. This tomato was to be featured in their spring seed catalog which was being eagerly awaited by gardeners all over America. Then a small seed company, Wisconsin Seedsmen, claimed that they had developed this tomato first and had brought a patent suit against Vandam's. Vandam's could not mail the thousands of catalogs to eager buyers until the suit was settled.

The Sloan Guaranty Bank and Trust company was not the principal bank for Vandam's but they were the principle bank for Standard Foods which had taken over Vandam's the year before. Standard Foods was a huge company which owned many smaller food producers. Thus the law suit against Vandam's was brought to John Putnam Thatcher's attention by Miss Corsa, his secretary, who was eagerly awaiting her spring catalog. Numero Uno was going to be worth millions to Standard Foods.

So John Putnam Thatcher, banker at the Sloan and amateur detective, went to Chicago to watch at first hand the developing situation. Dick Vandam told him that the Numero Uno had been developed for Vandam's by the Institute of Plant Research in Aleman, Puerto Rico. The IPR was headed by Howard Pendleton, who was a leader in plant genetic research. Pendleton developed plants for many companies and was growing rather wealthy in the process. His wife Fran was a geneticist but she specialized in roses, and his assistant Eric Most seemed very eager to take over IPR should Pendleton decide to retire.

Wisconsin Seedsmen was a much smaller organization. It was headed by Ned Ackerman who had raised the money to keep the operation going. Its star was Scott Wenzel who was a young plant geneticist who had developed the Wisconsin Seedsmen version of the contested tomato. This company ran on a shoe string, and many on the workers were high school students. Barbara Gunn was the secretary for the company, but she wanted to leave and get a college degree.

Now all of those involved in this controversy would meet at a Chicago convention of people involved in plant genetics. Needless to say, they did not get along very well together. A murder does occur at this convention. It occurs rather late in the development of the story, and I am not going to tell you who dies. So pay careful attention to all of the characters so you can predict the victim, and then determine the murderer.

This book will definitely appeal to gardeners, and the science of plant genetics is still very much in the news. This book was published in 1982, and is one of Emma Lathen's later works. It is available as an ebook and as a used paperback.