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In Crime on the Coast, Bea Rivers is  now the executive director of Shandley Gardens. She is invited to a small botanical garden conference at a seaside garden in exclusive La Jolla, California. The host director falls from 300-foot cliffs to the beach below, and the police declare the death to be either a suicide or a murder.  The victim, Bea’s college friend, Paige Pearson, had something urgent to tell Bea right before her death. Bea is determined to solve the mystery. In her own interviews and not-so-legal evidence gathering, Bea discovers that many of the people she’d just been dining with had good reasons to wish Paige gone. As her investigations accelerate, so does her realization that she is dealing with some very powerful and malevolent forces.

Author - Marty Eberhardt

Marty Eberhardt is a retired botanical garden executive director (including Tucson Botanical Gardens from 1988-2000)  who now delights in using the right side of her brain to write fiction. DEATH IN A DESERT GARDEN, her first novel, won the Arizona Book Award for cozy mystery in 2022, two Firebird awards, and the bronze CIPA/EVVY award for cozy mystery. BONES IN THE BACK FORTY, the second in the Bea Rivers botanical garden mystery series, won the 2025 New Mexico Book Award  for cozy mystery and two Firebird awards. The third Bea Rivers novel, CRIME ON THE COAST, will come out in February 2026. Marty and her husband divide their time between Tucson and the small mountain town of Silver City, NM, enjoying the enjoying the flora, fauna, wild areas and wild characters of both.