I really enjoy the China Bayles series. I like knowing the characters in depth from reading so much about them in previous installments.

I got stuck in the middle of this book, however, and never finished reading it. I'll save it for another day.

When collecting yucca leaves to use in a paper-making workshop, China
and a friend discover the body of Colin Fowler out by the railroad
tracks. Colin had been dating China's best friend, Ruby, and China was
aware of some of the secrets in his shady past. When another body shows
up at a plant nursery, China is sure the two murders are connected.
With Ruby away, seeing to her mother's admission to a nursing home,
China teams up with Sheila, the police chief in Pecan Springs, to try to
get to the bottom of the mystery. But, Sheila seems a little reluctant
to divulge everything she knows, too, which sets China on her guard.
But there is a very real possibility that this communication problem
between the two women could lead to yet another murder -- this time with
China as the victim.

Albert is doing something a bit different with these last couple of books. She's developing a crisis in the backstory that will span at least three books and it supposed to be the primary focus of the next book, I believe. Because of that, it felt like she wasn't giving proper attention to the matter at hand, which was the murders in THIS book. Because of this, I can't rate this book as highly as I usually do. ( )

Sixteenth entry in the China Bayles herbal mysteries—I’m now caught up until April when Nightshade is released. When China hosts a friend of Ruby’s to do a papermaking class, she and Carol go out to gather yucca leaves for the class, never suspecting that they will find a dead body among the plants near the railroad tracks! When China is at the scene of another dead body being found a couple of days later, an acquaintance of the first one, she’s thrust right into the midst of the case whether she wants to be or not. Meanwhile, Ruby is off to her mother’s to sort out her growing dementia problem, and McQuaid, China’s PI husband, is off to Houston to further investigate China’s father’s death, having been hired by China’s recently-discovered half-brother Miles, who suspects that Robert Bayles’ death by car crash sixteen years earlier was not an accident as had been presumed. Lots of difficult issues to deal with in this book, and definitely not your typical “light” cozy read, but I didn’t mind. I love these characters and it’s only natural that they would occasionally have difficult things to go through and was glad to share them. ( )

China and her friend find a body while gathering agave leaves for a project at her shop. The dead man is the former boyfriend of her friend, Ruby Wilcox. China gets involved in the investigation with Sheila, aka Smart Cookie, who is the chief of police. China rescues the Rottweiler belonging to the dead man at Ruby's insistence and discovers that the dog was a trained scent dog.

McQuaid meanwhile, is investigating the death of her father, having been hired by her half-brother Miles. This part of the story is a carry-over from the last book and will be solved in Nightshade.

Enjoyable. I like how the author includes the information about herbs into the beginning of each chapter. ( )

Spanish Dagger is the 15th of Susan Wittig Albert's China Bayles series. China is a former lawyer who gave it up to open an herbal shop in the Texas hill country. Her best friend is Ruby, who owns the New Age shop next door. The two eventually open a tea shop together. Meanwhile, they solve mysteries, lots of them. In this particular book, Ruby's former boyfriend is killed at the same time that Ruby is trying to deal with her mother's dementia.

The series isn't as cozy as it sounds. China has experience dealing with rough stuff in her lawyering days, and knows from experience that small towns that seem tranquil on the surface have their problems like everywhere else. China grows a lot as a character through the series, dealing with her intimacy issues which she resolves enough to marry McQuaid, a former policeman, now private investigator. She learns to cope with motherhood to McQuaid's son by a previous marriage, and to deal with the parents who virtually abandoned her, one a workaholic and one an alcoholic.

Altogether a dynamic series and Spanish Dagger is an excellent entry into the series. Nice bits of herbal lore and recipes are included in the books.

Albert also co-authors, with her husband Bill, a mystery series set in late 19th and early 20th century England under the pseudonym of Robin Paige. It is also an excellent series. Albert writes the Cottage Tales, which have Beatrix Potter as their main character. I've only read one, and it had more talking animals than I was ready to read about.

Check out the Alberts' site at http://www.mysterypartners.com/ for details on all their works. ( )