Texas herb shop owner and part-time private eye China Bayles sets out to catch a Halloween night killer when one of her friends turns up dead at the witching hour and another becomes a prime suspect.

In Pecan Springs, Texas, China Bayles, former lawyer and now owner of a herb store, discovers the body of a woman who is her double. It could be a crime of passion--the lady was going to divorce her husband--or, worse, someone is after China.

China Bayles had finally agreed to marry Mike McQuaid - and then he'd been paralyzed in the line of duty. Fully committed, she knows she'll tough it out, no matter how long his recovery might take. The annual chili cook-off sounds like a nice respite from the stress, so China gladly accompanies her wheelchair-bound sweetheart to the event. But tragedy strikes when cook-off judge Jerry Jeff Cody dies of a severe allergic reaction - to a peanut. Everyone...

China's herb shop and catering business may be thriving, but she's still reeling from her father's death, and not even remotely interested in her half-brother Miles's investigation into that event. China's husband, on the other hand, has no such qualms. And when fate forces her to get involved as well, China realizes it's time to bring the past to light-or else it will haunt her the rest of her life. But China and McQuaid discover that Miles may have...

"... China comes to the aid of a nurse who ends up in the hospital ... It's mid-April in Pecan Springs, and China is renting her guest cottage to Kelly Kaufman, who needs a temporary place to live as she contends with a very acrimonious divorce from her husband, Rich. One nasty point of dispute is her part ownership of the Comanche Creek Brewing Company, which she is refusing to sell. At the same time, as a nurse employed by a local hospice, Kelly...

"China and Ruby Wilcox are presenting their annual ''Not Just Plain Vanilla Workshop,'' always a huge hit with customers at Thyme & Seasons Herb Shop. But someone involved with the workshop is driven by a deadly motive, and China soon finds herself teaming up with the very pregnant Pecan Springs police chief Sheila Dawson to solve a vanilla-flavored murder. Sheila, happy to get out from behind the chief's desk, is investigating the death of a botany...