China Bayles mysteries
Author
Author
Series
China Bayles mysteries volume 1
Publisher
Scribner's
Pub. Date
[1992]
Language
English
Description
Behind shout blackmail and murder, not suicide. But why would anybody want to kill a woman who will die soon anyway? And what about the scent of perfume in Jo's house? When another mysterious death occurs, China is sure she's dealing with homicide. Helped by her best friend, New-Ager Ruby Wilcox, and with support from lover Mike McQuaid, a former-cop-turned-professor, China follows a trail of greed and fear to discover some unsettling answers. Thyme...
Author
Series
Publisher
Berkley Prime Crime
Pub. Date
1995, ©1994
Language
English
Description
When an animal researcher is found hanged, China Bayles discovers that her friend the Cat Lady is not the only one who wanted him dead, becomes involved in animal rights issues, and deals with a romantic ultimatum from Mike McQuaid.
Author
Series
Publisher
Berkley Prime Crime
Language
English
Description
In Pecan Springs, Texas, China Bayles, former lawyer and now owner of a herb store, discovers the body of a woman who is her double. It could be a crime of passion--the lady was going to divorce her husband--or, worse, someone is after China.
5) Rueful death
Author
Series
Publisher
Berkeley Pub
Pub. Date
1996.
Language
English
Description
On a retreat in St. Theresa's, a convent in Texas, sleuth China Bayles observes nuns fighting over a legacy worth millions of dollars. One lot wants the money for more contemplation, the other for commerce. When fires break out and people die, China steps in.
7) Chile death
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Ex-lawyer turned herbalist and amateur sleuth China Bayles attends a chili cookoff where a womanizing judge dies of an allergic reaction to peanuts. And since everyone knows peanuts don't belong in a bowl of Texas chili, China knows something suspicious is afoot...
Author
Series
Publisher
Berkley Prime Crime
Pub. Date
[1999]
Language
English
Description
Sleuth and herbalist China Bayles of Pecan Springs, Texas, joins Mike McQuaid, the town's police chief to investigate the murder of a land developer. They have to hurry if they don't want the case to clash with their honeymoon. They are getting married.
Author
Series
Publisher
Berkeley Prime Crime
Pub. Date
2000.
Language
English
Description
In this "intelligently plotted and deliciously descriptive tale" (Publishers Weekly), national bestselling author Susan Wittig Albert tells the story of a woman's search for justice?and of her struggle to reconcile the demands of her business with the desires of her heart... Former big-city lawyer China Bayles worked hard to make her Texas herb shop, Thyme and Seasons, a success. Now business is booming at her charming new tea room, Thyme for Tea?but...
10) Bloodroot
Author
Series
Publisher
Berkley Pub. Group
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
Lawyer-turned-herbalist China Bayles returns to the Deep South, where her family's legacy of silence is at last broken, and the past finally, unforgettably, speaks the truth... A frantic phone call from her mother brings China back to her family's Mississippi plantation, a place she'd forsaken long ago. But the late-spring air is thick with fear and from the moment of her arrival, China knows that something has gone desperately wrong at Jordan's...
11) Indigo dying
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
China Bayles heads to the tiny town of Indigo, Texas, to teach a Colors to Dye For workshop. But she quickly discovers that Indigo is a town with more than its share of dark secrets-secrets that someone thinks are worth killing to keep.
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
China, owner of Thyme and Seasons Herbs, relishes her membership on the planning committee for the Picklefest in Pecan Springs, Texas. Meanwhile, her husband Mike McQuaid is hanging out a shingle on his own new detective agency. Suddenly, their quiet life is interrupted when the Pickle Queen disappears just days before the festival. China and mike begin an exciting search for clues to this chilling mystery.
13) Dead man's bones
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
A dead man's bones are uncovered and Texas ex-lawyer and herbalist China Bayles must dig into a pair of murders separated by time but connected by motive... When China's teenage son finds some skeletal remains during a local cave dig, remains that show a not-so-accidental death, it's a disturbing development. But China doesn't let it distract her from the opening of the new community theater donated by the elderly Obermann sisters. Unfortunately,...
14) Bleeding hearts
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
When an anonymous source makes shocking allegations of improper behavior on the part of local high school football coach Tim Duffy, China Bayles is called in to conduct a discreet investigation into the charges, but her probe uncovers more than she had ever expected about a case involving betrayal, forbidden desire, and the mystery surrounding a young woman's death.
15) Spanish dagger
Author
Series
Publisher
Berkley Prime Crime
Language
English
Description
Between the herb shop, the catering business, and a weekend paper-making class, China Bayles has her work cut out for her. And now China's half-brother is opening up old wounds, trying to investigate their father's supposedly accidental death, and her husband is taking on the case-meaning she's just bound to get involved.
16) Nightshade
Author
Series
Publisher
Berkley Prime Crime
Pub. Date
[2008]
Language
English
Description
China's not interested in her half-brother Miles's investigation into their father's death. But Miles may have been keeping as many secrets as he seemed determined to uncover. Who has a stake in concealing the truth after sixteen years?
17) Wormwood
Author
Pub. Date
2009.
Language
English
Formats
Description
While getting some much needed rest and assisting with some herbal workshops, China Bayles stumbles over old secrets in a Kentucky Shaker village after a shocking death occurs during her stay.
18) Holly blues
Author
Pub. Date
2010.
Language
English
Formats
Description
China Bayles is fit to spit when her husband's troubled ex-wife, Sally, shows up at her herb shop, claiming to be broke with nowhere else to turn. When she invites Sally to stay, China starts receiving menacing calls from an "ex" of Sally's, who seems to have a connection to the murder of her parents nearly a decade ago.
19) Mourning Gloria
Author
Series
Pub. Date
2011.
Language
English
Formats
Description
After a woman is killed in an arson-homicide, Jessica Nelson, an intern-reporter at the local paper, is assigned to cover the story. When Jessica disappears, China Bayles is determined to find her, before she becomes a headline herself.
20) Cat's claw
Author
Series
Pub. Date
2012.
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Sheila Dawson has made history as the first female police chief in Pecan Springs, Texas. She's also cracked many a mystery in collaboration with local sleuth China Bayles--that's why everyone thinks she's such a smart cookie. Now, Sheila puts those smarts to work, sifting through secrets to find a killer on the prowl... Larry Kirk, Pecan Springs' computer guru, has been shot dead in his kitchen. At first Police Chief Sheila Dawson believes it to...
21) Widow's tears
Author
Series
Publisher
Berkley Prime Crime
Pub. Date
2013.
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
A haunted house may hold the key to solving the murder of one of China's friends... After losing her family and home in the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, Rachel Blackwood rebuilt her house a hundred miles inland and later died there, still wrapped in her grief. In present-day Texas, Claire, the grandniece of Rachel's caretaker, has inherited the house and wants to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast. But she is concerned that it's haunted, so she calls...
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
With the help of a lawyer friend in Texas, China Bayles investigates a cold case involving a valuable piece of Mexican art after suspecting that it may be connected to the death of another friend.
"When China's and Ruby's friend Karen Prior is mugged in a mall parking lot and dies a few days later, China begins to suspect that her friend's death was not a random assault. Karen was a filmmaker supervising a student documentary about the fifteen-year-old...
23) Bittersweet
Author
Publisher
Berkley Prime Crime
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
"This Thanksgiving, be grateful for China Bayles who teams up with an old friend to solve a complex case of theft and murder in a South Texas ranching community. It's Thanksgiving in Pecan Springs, and China is planning to visit her mother, Leatha, and her mother's husband, Sam, who are enthusiastically embarking on a new enterprise turning their former game ranch into a vacation retreat for birders. She's also looking forward to catching up with...
24) Blood orange
Author
Series
Publisher
Berkley Prime Crime
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
"... China comes to the aid of a nurse who ends up in the hospital ... It's mid-April in Pecan Springs, and China is renting her guest cottage to Kelly Kaufman, who needs a temporary place to live as she contends with a very acrimonious divorce from her husband, Rich. One nasty point of dispute is her part ownership of the Comanche Creek Brewing Company, which she is refusing to sell. At the same time, as a nurse employed by a local hospice, Kelly...
Author
Series
China Bayles mysteries volume 25
Pub. Date
2017.
Language
English
Formats
Description
"In this exciting new mystery from New York Times bestselling author Susan Wittig Albert, China Bayles fears for her husband's life as an escaped convict targets him ... Max Mantel, the killer McQuaid put away years ago, has busted out of Huntsville Prison and appears to be headed for Pecan Springs. McQuaid knows there's only one way to stop the vengeful convict--set a trap with himself as bait. China wants to stay by her husband's side and keep him...
Author
Series
China Bayles mysteries volume 26
Publisher
Berkley Prime Crime
Pub. Date
2018.
Language
English
Description
While helping Ruby Wilcox clean up the loft above their shops, China comes upon a box of antique handcrafted lace and old photographs. Then she hears a woman humming an old Scottish ballad and smells the delicate scent of lavender. Soon, strange happenings start to occur in Thyme and Seasons: misplaced items, a ringing bell, and the appearance of lavender sprigs in odd places. When a customer mentions seeing a mysterious woman picking flowers nearby...
Author
Series
China Bayles mysteries volume 27
Publisher
Persevero Press
Pub. Date
2019.
Language
English
Description
"China and Ruby Wilcox are presenting their annual 'Not Just Plain Vanilla Workshop,' always a huge hit with customers at Thyme & Seasons Herb Shop. But someone involved with the workshop is driven by a deadly motive, and China soon finds herself teaming up with the very pregnant Pecan Springs police chief Sheila Dawson to solve a vanilla-flavored murder. Sheila, happy to get out from behind the chief's desk, is investigating the death of a botany...
28) Hemlock
Author
Series
China Bayles mysteries volume 28
Publisher
Persevero Press
Pub. Date
[2021]
Language
English
Description
Herbalist China Bayles’ latest adventure takes her to the mountains of North Carolina, where her friend Dorothea Harper serves as the director and curator of the Hemlock House Library, a priceless collection of rare gardening books housed in a haunted mountainside mansion that once belonged to Sunny Carswell, a reclusive heiress. But the most valuable book—A Curious Herbal, created by Elizabeth Blackwell in the 1730s—is missing and Dorothea...
29)
An unthymely death and other garden mysteries
Author
30)
China Bayles' book of days: 365 celebrations of the mystery, myth, and magic of herbs from the world of Pecan Springs
Author