Helpful Score: 5
Pretty good mystery! Now that I've read the 1st and 2nd in the China Bayles series, I'll work my way through the rest of them. I think this is a series that is best read all together. The characters and setting aren't (yet) strong enough to be remembered over a long lapse between books. In contrast, Kay Scarpetta, V. I. Warshawsky, Kinsey Millhone, Mary Crow, Deborah Knott, and Benni Harper feel like distant relatives that I'll never forget and will always be glad to hear from/about. I think this series has the potential to create that kind of attachment; that's why I'll continue to read them.
Helpful Score: 4
China Bayles, former rat-race lawyer, escapes to small-town Texas to operate an herb shop and enjoy the simple life. Murder interrupts her simple life, however, when a good friend and local protest organizer dies suddenly. Revelatory letters, a crazy-eyed dollmaker, a nationally known TV personality, her ex-cop lover, and a shifty developer complicate matters as China begins her amateurish investigation. Like her pursuit of the murderer, this provides pleasant escape from routine. The first of a series.
If any of you liked the Nancy Drew series when you were kids, you'll love these. Same author too! Susan Albert wrote the Nancy Drew series under her pseudonym Carolyn Keene. She wrote the Hardy boys series under the pseudonym Franklin Dixon. (Amazing what you can learn on Amazon!)
If any of you liked the Nancy Drew series when you were kids, you'll love these. Same author too! Susan Albert wrote the Nancy Drew series under her pseudonym Carolyn Keene. She wrote the Hardy boys series under the pseudonym Franklin Dixon. (Amazing what you can learn on Amazon!)
Helpful Score: 3
Did not really care for this book.
Helpful Score: 2
This was a fun cozy mystery book. I read it because it was listed as the first one in Susan Wittig Albert's series China Bayles. I would like to read all these eventually. I enjoyed this book. I love to grow herbs and China does this and sells them in her shop. She is an ex-lawyer and when her good friend is found dead and it was ruled as suicide. China finds clues that make her believe it isn't suicide.
Enjoyed the book although there are a few references to things in China's life that aren't really explained almost as if it is a later one in a series so I'm left with questions. Maybe they are answered in later books instead of earlier ones. I will have to see.
Enjoyed the book although there are a few references to things in China's life that aren't really explained almost as if it is a later one in a series so I'm left with questions. Maybe they are answered in later books instead of earlier ones. I will have to see.
Helpful Score: 1
I'm hooked now! I really enjoyed this first book in the China Bayles Mystery series and plan to read them all! The information on herbs in the book was really interesting. A lite, enjoyable read.
