"You're not practicing that focus pocus on me," I said. "If you have to tell fortunes, Ruby, start with Justine." Across the table, Justin Wyzinski looked up from the lavender stems she was attempting to braid. "Palm reading is only a parlor game, China. Just superstition. Play along- it won't hurt you." She tossed the braid onto the table with an impatient gesture and leaned back in her white wicker chair. "Isn't there something else I can do besides making these ridiculous lavender hearts? Ruby's are perfect? Mine are hideously deformed. "

Synopsis: Will China and McQuaid ever get married? Not if people keep getting killed in Pecan Springs. Once again, China and Ruby unearth clues that help the police track down a murderer; they also help a mother find her kidnapped daughter.
Review: Although this book is a solidly written as readers have come to expect, it also has several scenes that make you laugh out loud. ( )

I have read all of the books in this series up through this one (book #8) and will continue to do so. I have really enjoyed all of them ( except one which I can't talk about because that would be a spoiler). China Bayles is the main character in all of the books. She's a former Houston lawyer who now lives in the fictional town of Pecan Springs which is in the Texas hill country. They are all murder mystery stories but not the gory, scary, hardcore stuff. There are reoccurring main characters who you will feel like you know as you read the books. It's small town Texas life and the stories are enjoyable, light reading. They were recommended to me and I will do the same to you. Read them in order so things will make sense :) ( )

It was okay.

"Damn it. This is my wedding. Why can't the week be normal?"

After I discovered Thyme of Death, I went a little overboard and tried to get the whole China Bayles series - I ended up with one paperback and two audio downloads. This was the paperback... Eminently readable (this was one of 2 1/2 books I read on New Year's Eve, content on the chaise longue outside my uncle's caravan at Tuross), yet missing something in that fantastic idea collection of the first book.

So China Bayles has quit her toxic lawyering in Houston for Mean Nasty Companies and retired to a little place called Pecan Springs where she runs a herb shop and her shop-neighbour is a crazy new Age lady called Ruby, and they are about to open a joint tea room. Local real estate mogul found dead. Most residents think "Good riddance", but it transpires rather quickly that Mr. Coleman was having a number of affairs and was blackmailing city council members for their support on a dodgy land investment deal. And then a few more bodies pile up...Oh and China is planning her wedding (at last) to McQuaid, acting chief of police, so the case needs to be wrapped up by Saturday otherwise China's honeymoon is going to get derailed.

I love a single lady investigator, and I've raved about the first book in this series; something in this one left me underwhelmed. It might have been that there was too much side chatter and not enough actual case; Ruby seems to have got even more mad and tipped over into caricature territory, and Wittig Albert is a little heavy-handed with the emotional preaching (China fiiiiiiiiiiiiinally gets over her issues with her mother).

That all notwithstanding, there are any number of red herrings, I didn't guess the bad guy, China's life is quite amusing to read about, Ruby does provide a lot of amusement and China does a nifty amount of sleuthing in a rather clever manner.

It's a decent detective story, it's just not as good as the first one in the series was. ( )