Table of Contents

IN

About the Author

Susan Wittig Albert grew up on a farm in Illinois and earned her Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley. A former professor of English and a university administrator and vice president, she is the author of the China Bayles Mysteries, the Darling Dahlias Mysteries, and the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter. Some of her recent titles include Widow’s Tears, Cat’s Claw, The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose, and The Tale of Castle Cottage. She and her husband, Bill, coauthor a series of Victorian-Edwardian mysteries under the name Robin Paige, which includes such titles as Death at Glamis Castle and Death at Whitechapel.

Reviews

China Bayles, featured in three other herb-titled mysteries, discovers a dead woman‘who resembles herself‘in a pick-up truck. China interrupts her herb-shop business to investigate the woman's past and uncovers a small host of likely suspects. The best of small-town Texas.

It's unsettling to find your doppelgänger murdered. So learns China Bayles in her fourth novel (following Hangman's Root). The Pecan Springs, Tex., herb store owner (and former attorney) goes to retrieve lover Mike McQuaid's truck from CPA Rosemary Robbins, who has borrowed it, only to find, first, that Rosemary looks a lot like her, and, two, that Rosemary won't be filling out any more 1040s. Discussing the murder with various denizens of the small town, she learns that Rosemary was about to divorce her abusive husband and was forming a relationship with hotel co-owner Jeff Clark. Ex-cop McQuaid, meanwhile, is convinced the killer is a paroled convict who, having vowed revenge on McQuaid, mistakenly whacked Rosemary, thinking she was China. But when Jeff, who is off on a fishing vacation, becomes the local police's prime suspect, McQuaid goes to the coast to find him. Dodging threats from the ex-con and relying on the help of her friends, China solves Rosemary's murder and, in the process, forges a connection with McQuaid's Star Trek-enthralled 11-year-old son. Herb lore and China's game approach to everyday problems, as well as extraordinary ones, make this Rosemary memorable, indeed. (Nov.)