We look forward to seeing you on your next visit to the library. Find a location near you.

China Bayles mysteries

Author:
Albert, Susan Wittig
 
Showing 1 - 30 of 30

1.  Thyme of death

 
Cover Image
Series Volume:
1.
Cover Image
Star rating for Witches' bane
Series Volume:
2.
Description:
In a small Texas town, what starts as a little festive Halloween fun ends in a brutal murder. And lawyer-turned-herbalist China Bayles is even more shocked when her friend Ruby, a New Age expert in tarot and astrology, becomes the prime suspect after a minister accuses her of witchcraft. Now it's up to China to unmask the real killer...
Cover Image
Star rating for Hangman's root
Series Volume:
3.
Cover Image
Star rating for Rosemary remembered
Series Volume:
4.
Description:
Something about the murder of an accountant just doesn't add up in this China Bayles mystery from New York Times bestselling author Susan Wittig Albert.
China's herb shop in Pecan Springs wasn't a big business, but it kept her busy. So she brought her taxes to Rosemary Robbins, an accountant who reminded China a bit of her former self—preoccupied, distracted, maybe a bit overstressed. Still, Rosemary always seemed pleasant,...
Cover Image
Star rating for Rueful death
Series Volume:
5.
Description:
Herbalist China Bayles must solve a mother of a murder in this mystery from New York Times bestselling author Susan Wittig Albert.
In search of respite, China takes off to St. Theresa's Monastery with her friend Maggie, a former nun. The goal is a brief, tranquil retreat—but there's a conflict at the convent. The mother superior has recently died, and a battle over the future of St. Theresa's suggests that her sudden demise...
Cover Image
Star rating for Love lies bleeding
Series Volume:
6.
Description:
The newest in the nationally bestselling series—a "fast-paced and absorbing" tale (Midwest Book Review). Ex-lawyer and herb-shop proprietor China Bayles is investigating the mystery of retired Texas Ranger shot dead with his wife's gun...and at the same time trying to sort out some mysteries about her own relationship after she overhears a suspicious phone conversation...
Cover Image
Star rating for Chile death
Series Volume:
7.
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...
Cover Image
Star rating for Lavender lies
Series Volume:
8.
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
Texas herbalist China Bayles must put her upcoming nuptials on the back burner when a murder investigation entangles her friends and neighbors.
Cover Image
Star rating for Mistletoe man
Series Volume:
9.
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 justiceand 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

...
Cover Image
Star rating for Bloodroot
Series Volume:
10.
Average Rating:
5 stars
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

...
Cover Image
Star rating for Indigo dying
Series Volume:
11.
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.
Cover Image
Star rating for A dilly of a death
Series Volume:
12.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
China Bayles is in a pickle. The daughter of her best friend, Ruby, has turned up on her doorstep, pregnant and in need of a place to live. And her otherwise sensible husband has announced that he's bored with teaching and ready for a career change." "Say "hello" to P.I. Mike McQuaid and Associates. There aren't actually any "associates" - unless you count Ruby and China, of course. But the title does have a nice, official ring to it. His first client...
Cover Image
Star rating for Dead man's bones
Series Volume:
13.
Description:
Susan Wittig Albert’s exciting mysteries have been praised as “unique” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) and “fascinating” (Booklist). Now, 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

...
Cover Image
Star rating for Bleeding hearts
Series Volume:
14.
Description:
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. "Albert's characterization is strong-China...
Cover Image
Star rating for Spanish dagger
Series Volume:
15.
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.
Cover Image
Star rating for Nightshade
Series Volume:
16.
Description:
In this 16th entry in Susan Wittig Albert's long-running mystery series, China is finally on the verge of finding out the truth about her father's death. But her reservations about letting her half-brother Miles hire her husband prove all too accurate when she discovers Miles has a hidden agenda.
Cover Image
Star rating for Wormwood
Series Volume:
17.
Average Rating:
5 stars
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.
Cover Image
Star rating for Holly blues
Series Volume:
18.
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.
Cover Image
Star rating for Mourning Gloria
Series Volume:
19.
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.
Cover Image
Star rating for Cat's claw
Series Volume:
20.
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...
Cover Image
Star rating for Widow's tears
Series Volume:
21.
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
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.
Cover Image
Star rating for Death come quickly
Series Volume:
22.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"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 murder of a woman named Christine Morris and the acquittal of the man accused of the crime. Is it possible that the same person who killed Christine Morris targeted Karen? Delving into the cold...
Cover Image
Star rating for Bittersweet
Series Volume:
23.
Average Rating:
5 stars
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...
Cover Image
Star rating for Blood orange
Series Volume:
24.
Description:
"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...
Cover Image
Star rating for The Last Chance Olive Ranch
Series Volume:
25.
Average Rating:
5 stars
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...
Cover Image
Star rating for Queen Anne's lace
Series Volume:
26.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
A present-day ghost leads China Bayles to a secret from Pecan Springs’s past in this haunting mystery from New York Times bestselling author Susan Wittig Albert.
While helping Ruby Wilcox clean up the loft above their shops, China comes upon a box of antique handcrafted lace and old photographs. Following the discovery, she hears a woman humming an old Scottish ballad and smells the delicate scent of lavender.…
Soon,...
Cover Image
Star rating for A plain vanilla murder
Series Volume:
27.
Average Rating:
5 stars
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

Cover Image
Star rating for Hemlock
Series Volume:
28.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Herbalist China Bayles investigates the disappearance of the most valuable book at the Hemlock House Library, a haunted mountainside manor in North Carolina that houses a collection of rare gardening books.
Cover Image
Star rating for An unthymely death and other garden mysteries
Description:
"China Bayles has settled into the quaint Texas town of Pecan Springs, fallen in love with former homicide detective Mike McQuaid, and opened her beloved Thyme and Seasons herb shop--all while solving more than her share of mysteries. Now you can join China in then puzzling cares--and get a taste of her world..." -- back cover.

30.  China Bayles' book of days: 365 celebrations of the mystery, myth, and magic of herbs from the world of Pecan Springs

 
Cover Image