Cynthia Riggs, daughter of Dionis Coffin Riggs, has immortalized her mother as the 92-year-old sleuth Victoria Trumbull of a popular Island mystery series. Riggs, the younger, has penned ten of these novels so far, the title of each one inspired by the name of a poisonous, or at least sinister, flower, such as Deadly Nightshade and The Paperwhite Narcissus.

Each of the novels features a special setting, historical context and quirky features of the Island, including a roman à clef glimpse of some of our more eccentric characters. Ms. Riggs wears a T-shirt, Be Careful, I Might Put You In My Novel.

Over the years, fans have encouraged Ms. Riggs to publish maps and guides to accompany the world of Victoria Trumbull. Recently their wish came true. Victoria Trumbull’s Martha’s Vineyard, A Guide Book arrived in stores a few weeks ago.

The project came together over the course of two years. Ms. Riggs happens to have a talented photographer, Lynn Christoffers of New York city, in residence at her guest house on her property in West Tisbury. Ms. Christoffers has exhibited her photography and mixed media installations both in New York city and on the Vineyard.

“This is my first book,” Ms. Christoffers said. “I’ve done a lot of regional magazine pieces in the last few years and that gave me my confidence to go out and shoot anything and everything that had to do with Cynthia and Victoria’s Vineyard.”

The author and photographer talked with Jan Pogue, publisher of Vineyard Stories, who generously shared her knowledge of today’s book trade. Falmouth cartoonist Stephen “Step” Wesley, agreed to furnish a set of sassy maps. At Tisbury Printer, Janet Holladay supervised the layout of each page. “She’s a genius,” declared Ms. Riggs. And finally, printer Chris Decker rolled out 178 sumptuous pages packed with poems by Dionis Coffin Riggs, color-shaded sidebars rich with fun factoids and vignettes from the mysteries, text that reads like a chat with Ms. Trumbull herself, and photographs of the Vineyard.

The book goes a long way in immortalizing both the world of Victoria Trumbull and her inspiration, Dionis Coffin Riggs, 1888-1997, the legendary poet, gardener and mistress of Cleaveland House, a private inn for visiting writers and poets.

“My mother’s great wish was to have lived in three centuries,” Ms. Riggs said recently, seated at a sunny table behind her country kitchen with her friend and collaborator, Lynn Christoffers.

This comment elicited a question about her mother’s sudden death on the threshold of 99: Legend had it she died while cutting flowers in her own garden.

“No, she died in this house, but . . . she’d had a very full day,” Ms. Riggs said.

The day in question, April 20, 1997, included supervising the digging of a new fish pond, ordering white water lilies from a catalogue, and attending the christening of her twenty-third great-grandson at the West Tisbury Congregational Church, the event followed by a festive al fresco party. Later, back at Cleaveland House, she shoveled the compost heap and packed up kindling in paper bags. At last she settled down on a sofa in the front parlor to read the New York Sunday Times. The plan for later that evening was to attend a lecture at the Federated Church in Edgartown about developing and deepening a spiritual life.

Daughter Cynthia (two other daughters, Alvida and Ann, also have homes on the family property) has the same hardworking genes. For years she worked for National Geographic and later earned a captain’s license and plied that trade as well. After her mother died, she returned to Vermont College for graduate work at the age of 68. Two years later she received her MFA degree in creative writing and began writing her mystery series set on the Island. The main character, Victoria Trumbull, remains a perennial 92.

“I thought a 98 or 99 year-old detective would strain credibility,” Ms. Riggs said.

Her latest novel, The Bee Balm Murders, was released last spring.

Victoria Trumbell’s Martha’s Vineyard Guide Book is organized by six tours: Vineyard Haven to Up-Island; West Chop; West Tisbury; Oak Bluffs; Vineyard Haven to Edgartown, and Chappaquiddick. Additional special tours take readers to more off-the-beaten-path destinations such as Sepiessa Point and Waskosim’s Rock, a Land Bank wilderness area straddling West Tisbury and Chilmark. Even Island natives are sure to stumble upon new places and unknown nuggets of history and culture in this guide. As old-timers are fond of saying, one can never know every nook and cranny on this multifaceted island.

The voice of Ms. Riggs and the interchangeable Dionis and Victoria shine through on each of the six journeys and side trips: “A weather breeder means a storm is brewing. The term refers to a bright sparkling day when the atmosphere is so clear, you can see houses and trees on the mainland.”

The guide is also filled with colorful curiosities such as “Martha’s Vineyard has the only beetlebung trees in the world, a tree with tough, gnarled wood, so resistant to abuse it was used in whaling days for the ‘beetle’ or mallet that hammered the ‘bung’ or stopper into whale-oil casks. Elsewhere in the world, the trees are called ‘tupelo,’ Nyssa sulvatica.”

This is not a book one plops down on the couch to read, but rather prompts one to put on a hat and autumn jacket, just like the apparel pictured on the guide book’s cover, and head out to investigate the late summer garden and, beyond that, the woods, fields and coves of Martha’s Vineyard.

Let us all go forth and have a Dionis Day!