Susan Wittig Albert, Spanish Dagger

Spanish Dagger

Susan Wittig Albert

Berkley, April 2007, $23.95, 320 pp.

ISBN: 0425213943

Between running her shop Thymes and Seasons, Thyme Cottage, and her partnering with Ruby Wilcox for Thyme for Tea and Party Thyme, China Bayles has no thyme, make that time, for herself. She is there for her friend Ruby who just broke up with her lover Collin, owner of an environment-friendly store. She doesn't tell Ruby that he's an undercover cop who got busted when he told a two level dealer that he was about to be busted. She is also adjusting to the fact that she has a half-brother, Miles Danforth who believes his and China's father was murdered in what was supposed to be an accidental car crash.

China's husband, now a private investigator, takes the case and heads out of town to do some investigating. When she finally gets a moment to breathe, she and a friend go to railroad tracks to pick yucca leaves but find the knifed body of Collin. Ruby is in Fredericksburg trying to get her senile mother into an assisted loving facility and asks China to investigate. With key in hand China goes into Collin's store where she gets the numbers of Lucita who called Collin on unexplained business. When China goes to the nursery where Lucita works, she finds Lucita's dead body with her throat cut. Something rotten is going on in Pecan Springs, Texas, and China vows to stop it with the help of a drug-sniffing rottweiler.

Susan Wittig Albert has written another excellent China Bayles mystery that is filled with danger, action and intrigue. The mysterious stranger who is in town is either the cause or the one who intends to stop it. However he has never dealt with the heroine or Smart Cookie, aka the Chief of Police. Readers will enjoy learning about China's past family life and hope that the answer about her father will be found in the next book in this delightful series.

Harriet Klausner