The latest entry in this long running and excellent series featuring China Bayles, a former high powered attorney who now owns an herbal shop and cafe in Pecan Springs, Texas is all about orchids, especially the orchid that produces vanilla beans. This series always features a key herb, spice or flower which becomes intertwined with the plot in the same way a vine winds around a post, naturally and effortlessly. The mysteries also educate on the history and uses of the title herb, spices, flower or other botanical, and this one features vanilla. It’s fascinating to me since I like gardening and herbs and cooking with natural ingredients so I enjoy these mysteries for their focus on plants and their varied uses, it makes one realize how many wonderful products we use to flavor our foods or use for healing that come from plants.
If you are new to this series there are a few characters that are usually center stage but in this mystery they are relegated to the background. Instead a supporting character Sheila Dawson, the town’s police chief who is in her 8th month of pregnancy is the central character. She is called out to check on the suicide of a professor at the local college who was found shot in his greenhouse. The police chief and her chief detective notice some irregularities and want an autopsy done which reveals that their suspicions were correct, the professor was murdered.
Continue reading ““A Plain Vanilla Murder” by Susan Wittig Albert”
This series features a Southern gal in sunny California married to a police detective whom she met when she was a cop. Savannah is now a Private Investigator who calls on a loosely knit group of relatives and friends known as the Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency to help with research and investigating suspects.
Many cozies have dogs, cats and other pets that feature as wonderful, humorous sidekicks and add heart and interest to a story but in this mystery, Murder a la Mocha, dogs are pivotal to the plot and not just as endearing delightful characters. This is also a very topical mystery and reveals a lot about the American lifestyle.