Spanish Dagger (China Bayles Mystery)

by Susan Wittig Albert

Paperback, 2008

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Publication

Berkley (2008), Edition: Reprint, 304 pages

Description

Between the herb shop, the catering business, and a weekend paper-making class, China Bayles has her work cut out for her. And now China's half-brother is opening up old wounds, trying to investigate their father's supposedly accidental death, and her husband is taking on the case-meaning she's just bound to get involved.

User reviews

LibraryThing member LeHack

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.

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LibraryThing member madamejeanie

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.

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LibraryThing member herbcat

Susan Wittig Albert always laces her China Bayles mysteries liberally with local color and interesting details. While the characters in this series are getting a little stale, the plot is still quirky and puzzling, and it's always good to visit with old friends. Albert writes well, and the story

never drags, yet there is enough detail to flesh out the bones of the plot.

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LibraryThing member thornton37814

China Bayles and her guest Carole discover the corpse of Ruby's ex-boyfriend Colin among some yucca plants by the railroad. She calls her friend Sheila, the chief of police. At the same time her step-brother Miles wants to investigate the car accident that killer her father years earlier and hires

her ex-cop (now PI) husband McQuaid to work on the case. Resolution for the investigation into her father's death is supposed to take place in the next installment Nightshade. It becomes apparent that Colin's death is somehow related to his past uncover work in drug enforcement. There's a lot of action in this one. China seems to get herself into a lot of situations that she should probably have avoided. The star of the show ends up being Colin's Rottweiler.

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LibraryThing member hazysaffron

Ruby was away dealing with her mother for most of this book and the dynamic that you've come to expect between the regular characters felt completely off as a result. Definitely NOT my favorite book in the series. Also, I love how many times she talks about "chain evidence" only to ignore her own

advice at critical junctures.

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LibraryThing member DrLed

Synopsis: While gathering Spanish Dagger leaves for paper making, China and a friend discover the body of Ruby's boyfriend; of course, he's been murdered. This also raises the question of whether he was still an under-cover officer or involved in some sort of illegal activities. Ruby is away

dealing with her mother's onset of dementia; McQuaid is off investigating the 16-year old death of China's father.
Review: This is one of the better stories in that it deals with aging parents in an effective and sensitive manner and the mystery is nicely convoluted.

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LibraryThing member JBarringer

This book makes me want to go outside and harvest some yucca for my own papermaking adventure.

LibraryThing member pennykaplan

China find a body in a yucca plant while searching for herbs and it turns out to be her friend Ruby’s ex-lover, a local resident t who appears to have had a double life.

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