February 17, 2014
The fatal mugging of Karen Prior in a west Texas mall kicks off Albert’s perky 22nd mystery featuring herbalist and former lawyer China Bayles (after 2013’s Widow’s Tears). Before she died, Karen, a teacher friend of China’s, was supervising a student documentary on the murder of local art lover Christine Morris some 15 years earlier. The man charged with Morris’s murder and later acquitted was an apparent suicide. How the deaths fit together and their relationship to the Mexican art market is murky indeed. The book’s first half meanders along, nice for readers interested in the minutiae of China’s life, a tad boring for everyone else. But the pace picks up when China gets serious about the investigation. China gets help from her best friend and business partner, Ruby Wilcox, whose thinking is strictly intuitive, and her investigator husband, Mike McQuaid, who, like law enforcement husbands everywhere, tries to keep her from getting involved. Albert skillfully weaves legal and herbal information into the plot.
April 15, 2014
China Bayles returns to remind readers of the skills that enable Albert (aka Robin Paige) to keep four series going with a dynamic cast of characters and an interesting blend of cold cases and modern murder to solve. China's friend Karen is beaten to death in a mall parking lot but not robbed. She had been advising two graduate students working on a film about the 15-year-old murder case of an art collector. Former lawyer turned herbalist China carefully researches the old case, even as one of the graduate students is attacked. Pecan Springs, Texas, police chief Sheila is waylaid with health problems, while China learns more about the cold-case victim's Mexican art obsession and who might want her case to stay unsolved. The herbal and art details provide interesting background, while the plot moves and surprises. The minor characters, such as China's friend Ruby and Sheila, provide as much insight as the heroine in this series. Readers may also enjoy Kate Collins' series about another plant lover who left a law career behind.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)