Susan Wittig Albert's "Nightshade"

At first it was difficult to get in to the China Bayles mystery, "Nightshade," because this is the third of a trilogy. It continues "Bleeding Hearts" and "Spanish Dagger," both of which were about the death of China's father. The third book tracks the way China and her husband, Mike McQuaid, sleuth out her dad's killer.

China is a former assistant DA, who has become a shop owner in the hill country outlying Austin, TX. China's character has always bothered me a bit because I personally do not know any shop owner or restauranteer who can break away from the business long enough to solve a murder mystery. One has to suspend reality long enough to appreciate the plot.

While I found the information about the Nightshade family of plants-- including the tomato, tomatillo, chili pepper, potato, eggplant, petunia and tobacco, not to mention the other deadly varieties, I didn't really get how it tied in with the plot. Well, there is one character crucial to solving the case who raises tomatillos. I kept expecting someone to get poisoned.

No such luck. People got blown up, run over and shot in this one.

Still, it's a fast read and it kept my attention throughout, even though I never quite got into the characters or the plot.

I've read other China Bayles mysteries before, and I'm sure I'll pick them up again. I just don't think I'll go out of my way to go back to the two previous titles in the trilogy. I got the picture from the third one.

One thumb up.

Liz Nichols

Susan Conant's "All Shots, A Dog Lover's Mystery"

This was not the best read of the summer. I do appreciate all the information I did not previously know about malamutes, and learning that that breed and Alaskan huskies are not the same thing was of some interest.

There is lots of non-fiction information in this book for dog lovers.

As mysteries go, however, I found this one confusing. There were just too many Holly Winters in the book. That's all part of the plot. The heroine's name is Holly Winter, and there are two more Holly Winter characters involved. It seems like someone is trying to steal the heroine's identity until she finds out there are others with her name. I haven't gone back to verify this, but with all the Holly Winter characters running around (or lying in the morgue) it felt like the author was changing voices all the time. Perhaps that's what led to the confusion.

At any rate, I just couldn't get into this one, unlike some of her previous Dog Lover's Mystery titles. Perhaps the series is growing stale.

Conant also has a new series for cat lovers and another mystery series for "gourmet girls."

Liz Nichols