National best-selling author Susan Wittig Albert's poetic beauty and West Texas flavor permeate her China Bayles mysteries. The high school principal asks China to secretly investigate the popular football coach who led the Panthers to six state championships. Soon after China confirms the coach's predilection for teenage girls, one of his victims turns up dead and suspicion falls upon the lecherous coach.

China's herb shop and catering business may be thriving, but she's still reeling from her father's death, and not even remotely interested in her half-brother Miles's investigation into that event. China's husband, on the other hand, has no such qualms. And when fate forces her to get involved as well, China realizes it's time to bring the past to light-or else it will haunt her the rest of her life. But China and McQuaid discover that Miles may have...

The country may be struggling through the Great Depression, but the ladies of Darling, Alabama, are determined to keep their chins up. Their garden club-The Darling Dahlias-has a clubhouse, a garden, a flag, and a weekly column in The Darling Dispatch written by their own Miss Elizabeth Lacy. Unlike their snooty rivals-Sisters of the Spade- they welcome members from across the social spectrum. What better way to know everything there is to know about...

Rumors are sprouting in Depression-era Darling, Alabama. The town's newest visitors, Nona Jean Jamison and Miss Lake, may be the Naughty and Nice Sisters from the Ziegfeld Frolic, who specialize in dancing nearly naked. The Dahlias suspect more than modesty when Nona denies her association.

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. 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 be suicide, perhaps triggered by his painful divorce. Further...

Herbalist ex-lawyer China Bayles investigates the murder of a teller at the Pecan Springs bank and follows the clues to a haunted bed and breakfast.

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. But Leatha calls with bad news: Sam has had a heart attack. She does have a helper, Sue Ellen Krause. But China discovers that Sue Ellen, who is in the process of leaving her marriage to the assistant foreman...

"In the newest China Bayles Mystery in the New York Times bestselling series, 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...

"It's Christmas, 1934, and the citizens of Darling, Alabama, are unwrapping a big package of Christmas puzzles. Mildred Kilgore and Earlynne Biddle are planning to open a bakery on the square--if they can come up with the right recipes. Charlie Dickens faces two of the biggest puzzles of his career as an investigative reporter, and one of them involves his wife. Cute little Cupcake's talent as a singer and dancer makes her a tempting target for an...

"Discovering a box of antique handcrafted lace and old photographs in the loft above her shop, China hears ghostly humming and smells lavender from an invisible source before a series of strange occurrences in the building she shares with Ruby reveals the story of a young widow lacemaker who died under suspicious circumstances a century earlier."--Amazon.com.