When a prominent animal researcher is found hanged in the midst of angry protests against his experiments, suspicion falls on biology professor Dottie Riddle. Known as the Cat Lady of Pecan Springs, Dottie's sympathy for strays-and the victim's distaste for them-gives the police reason to think she may be capable of murder. But China Bayles doesn't think so. She hires a lawyer for Dottie and starts looking around for clues. But she soon discovers...

After losing her husband, five children, housekeeper, and beautiful home in the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, Rachel Blackwood rebuilt her home, and later died there, having been driven mad with grief. In present-day Texas, Claire, the grand niece of Rachel's caretaker, has inherited the house and wants to turn it into a bed and breakfast. But she is concerned that it's haunted, so she calls in her friend Ruby -- who has the gift of extrasensory perception...

Brother Cadfael must intervene when a prisoner exchange is interrupted by love and murder In February of 1141, men march home from war to Shrewsbury, but the captured sheriff Gilbert Prestcote is not among them. Elis, a young Welsh prisoner, is delivered to the Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul to begin a tale that will test Brother Cadfael's sense of justice-and his heart.   By good fortune, it seems, the prisoner can be exchanged as Sheriff Prestcote's...

When a harsh priest is drowned, Brother Cadfael discovers a long list of suspects, including a young man who isn't who he claims to be In a mild December in the year of our Lord 1141, a new priest comes to the parishioners of the Foregate outside the Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Father Ailnoth brings with him a housekeeper and her nephew-and a disposition that invites murder.   Brother Cadfael quickly sees that father Ailnoth is a harsh man...

On an expedition to acquire a saint's remains, Brother Cadfael instead finds intrigue and murder It is 1137, and the ambitious head of Shrewsbury Abbey wishes to acquire the remains of Saint Winifred for the glory of his Benedictine order. Brother Cadfael is part of the expedition sent to the saint's final resting place in Wales, where he finds the villagers divided over the Benedictines' quest.   When the leading opponent to moving the grave is...

Hoping to return home after a winter in the Sudden Mountains so he can join his parents in the fight against the evil Chancellor, Raffa must use his apothecary skills while enlisting the help of human and animal friends to survive the journey.

China Bayles investigates the tragic story of a woman in an old photograph. Annie Laurie was a young widow who'd lost both her husband and her child on the same day. She manages to survive through her lace-making business and finds happiness again only to have a suspicious death overshadow her new life. As China delves into Annie's century-old mystery, she realizes that solving it could have unimaginable repercussions in the here and now.

New York Times best-selling author of A Dilly of a Death, Susan Wittig Albert adds Dead Man's Bones to her widely acclaimed China Bayles mystery series. Publishers Weekly says China is "in a class with lady sleuths V. I. Warshawski and Stephanie Plum." Deep in Texas hill country, ex-lawyer China thinks life is hectic enough already, and then her teenage son unearths human remains while digging in a nearby cave.

"There is a hidden garden bordering the grounds of Jane Steward's book-themed resort--a garden filled with beautiful but deadly plants such as mandrake and nightshade. Tucked away behind ivy-covered walls and accessible only through a single locked door--as described in the pages of Frances Hodges Burnett's classic novel--the garden is of special interest to Jane's current group of guests, The Medieval Herbalists. But when one of them turns up dead,...

"Herbalist and widow Bess Ellyott tries to escape the loss of her husband in Elizabethan London only to find that death is following her, and she may very well be next"--Amazon.com.