Nineteen years ago, amateur Canadian orchid addict Bedie Dunn disappeared while camping in the Dordogne region of France. When her twin, Mara, suddenly stumbles across Bedie’s camera in a local antique shop, the last roll of film still intact, she hopes the discovery might help solve the mystery of her sister’s disappearance. While the badly damaged film in Bedie’s camera contains a series of orchid photos, it doesn’t offer any clear clues as to where the photos were actually taken.

In desperation, Mara turns to Julian Wood, an expat English orchid expert, who discovers that one of the photos is of an exceptionally rare orchid, Cypripedium, or Lady’s Slipper, which grows in Dordogne but has been virtually wiped out in the rest of Europe. Wood agrees to help Mara trace her sister’s last known whereabouts in exchange for her helping him track down the orchid. But the amateur sleuths don’t have a lot to go on, and there are any number of potential suspects.

The local colour of Dordogne and the focus on orchid mania should make Deadly Slipper a compelling and irresistible
mystery, but Michelle Wan never quite carries it off. The local characters, for example, only cease to be cardboard stereotypes in the final scene of the novel, too late to really make us care about them. Wan’s plotting of the mystery is slightly off-balance as well; she spends a lot of time setting things up, using the missing camera as a focus, but she never does explain how the camera actually found its way from the killer’s hands into Mara’s. She also tries to cast suspicion on Julian Wood, but the rationale she uses – a suspicious business card and Wood’s extremely English sensibility, yet another cultural stereotype – is weak and ends up making the reader question not only the intelligence of the retired French police officer who is Mara’s chief supporter, but Mara’s credibility as well.