In this mystery, the only witness to a decades-old crime is a orchid, a Cypripedium - Sabot de Venus in French, sometimes called Lady's Slipper in English.

Beatrice "Bedie" Dunn became fascinated with wild orchids when she got a summer job with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. They sent her to the Bruce Peninsula to map orchids. She spent three months there, wandering around the woodlands, doing some serious hiking and camping-out. When she returned in the fall with fifty rolls of film, she had a new avocation - wild orchid hunting. Bedie became passionate about "documenting the existence of a single flower or the breeding ground of a particular species." In 1984 she and her boyfriend, Scott, went on a hiking holiday in the Dordogne region of southwestern France. When it began to rain, the couple had an argument about whether to leave their camp and seek shelter elsewhere or to stay put. Bedie was adamant about remaining and so she did - alone. When Scott returned two days later the tent and their things were still at the campsite, but Bedie was gone, along with her camera, backpack, Michelin guide and a book on wildflowers and orchids. No one ever saw the young woman again. After a massive search and investigation, which garnered much publicity, no evidence of foul play was discovered, no body, no crime scene.

Deadly Slipperis set in the Dordogne, a region of southwestern France known for its dramatic flora and fauna, particularly its wild orchids. The profusion of plant life attracted a loner Englishman named Julian Wood to the area years ago and inspired the writing of his acclaimed text, "Wildflowers of the Dordogne/Fleurs sauvage de la Dordogne." Ever since the publication of that horticultural "bilingual bible," Julian has made his living doing landscape gardening for the wealthy expatriates moving into the locale. One wet spring day, an attractive and energetic Canadian woman named Mara Dunn (Bedie’s twin sister) turns up at his stone cottage seeking advice, not on how to eliminate crabgrass on her yard but on how to retrace the steps of her twin sister, Bedie, as told before, who disappeared on a backpacking trip in the Dordogne in 1984.

Mara has never resigned herself to the loss of her sister. She moved to the Dordogne after her divorce became final and went into the interior design business, all the while maintaining contact with the police. Nothing concrete, however, was found concerning the disappearance. During an antique hunting expedition in a near-by town, Mara discovered an old Canon camera in a pile of junk. She noticed it immediately, even though the case was mildewed and worn, because it was identical to the cameras her parents had given her and her sister for their high school graduation. She was sure it was the camera her sister had traveled to France with. Inside the case the initials "B. D." were written, and inside the camera was an undeveloped roll of film. Damaged by time and dampness, but still viable, thirty-four photographs were revealed upon development, of wild orchids. One badly speckled photo rivets Julian's attention. Apparently, the last shot Bedie ever took rivet Julian, not so much because they may hold clues to Bedie's disappearance, but because the last shot Bedie ever took was a close-up of a Lady's Slipper, a rare orchid that has never been known to grow in the Dordogne. Enthused by the discovery, the two amateur sleuths come to a tentative arrangement - Mara will help Julian locate the Lady's Slipper, if Julian helps Mara retrace Bedie's last movements before she disappeared……

	Cypripedium farreri.
	Cypripedium wardii
	Michelle Wan

Although Mara finds herself increasingly attracted to Julian, she wonders if there isn't something funny and even suspicious about a man who seemingly prefers the company of flora to that of women. …. (do we have such kind of man among our molecular botanists?) Julian looks at the cypripedium, a remarkable flower and realizes that it's all too emblematic of his life - "doomed to clutch hopelessly at the things he wanted most, desired objects dangling just out of reach."

Not only is "Deadly Slipper" a good literary mystery, also, especial for me, a horticulturalist's delight, finely detailed and researched. it is really a fun book to read. Filled with an exotic cast of characters. But Mara draws closer to the heart of Bedie's disappearance, as the infamous Lady's Slipper assumes a deadly presence, its rare beauty the key that unlocks a cunning murder.

Author, Michelle Wan has meticulously researched her first novel, not just the complex science of orchidology, but also the beautiful and varied landscape of southwestern France. Although the mystery plot is formulaic, the tension is effectively maintained throughout, as the quest nears its simultaneously desired and dreaded end.

Michelle Wan was born in Kunming, China. She and her husband, a botanist, travel regularly to the Dordogne to photograph and chart wild orchids. She is the author of another novel in the”Death in the Dordogne” series, The Orchid Shroud (352 pages, 2007, Vintage, ISBN: 978-1-4000-7953-7), and is working on a third.

Michelle Wan and her husband actually encountered related slippers Cypripedium farreri, and Cypripedium wardii, during a recent trip to China, where she was doing research for the next of her 'orchid-themed' mysteries. Click to enjoy her recent essay,“Wild Flowers”, on her recent trip to China, that was special prepared for Guelph Mercury.