From Susan Wittig Albert, the New York Times best-selling author of Queen Anne's Lace, comes an intriguing new addition to her widely-acclaimed China Bayles Mysteries.

China and Ruby Wilcox are present...

Buy Now From Amazon

From Susan Wittig Albert, the New York Times best-selling author of Queen Anne's Lace, comes an intriguing new addition to her widely-acclaimed China Bayles Mysteries.

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 professor, a prominent researcher specializing in vanilla orchids. China is trying to help a longtime friend: the dead professor's ex-wife and a prime suspect in his murder.

However, there's no shortage of other suspects: a betrayed lover, a disgruntled graduate student, jealous colleagues, and a gang of orchid smugglers. But the lethal roots of this mystery reach back into the dark tropical jungles of Mexico, where the vanilla vine was first cultivated. At stake: a lucrative plant patent, an orchid that is extinct in the wild, and the life of an innocent little girl.

A Plain Vanilla Murder is a flavorful blend of mystery and herb lore, present sins and past secrets, and characters who are as real as your next-door neighbors—stirred together in an absorbing novel that only Susan Wittig Albert could create.

Similar Products

Aunt Dimity and the Heart of GoldWhiskers in the Dark: A Mrs. Murphy MysteryOwl Be Home for Christmas: A Meg Langslow Mystery (Meg Langslow Mysteries)The A List (Ali Reynolds Series)Love and Death Among the Cheetahs (A Royal Spyness Mystery)Invitation Only Murder (A Lucy Stone Mystery)