Cat's Claw

Cat's Claw is the twentieth China Bayles mystery from Susan Wittig Albert, with the Pecan Springs herbalist working alongside her PI husband Mike McQuaid on a case involving cybercrime, identity theft, and a small Texas town's slowly accumulating digital-economy vulnerability. The book represents a significant series register shift; Albert had been running mostly hyperlocal cozy plots for a decade and Cat's Claw takes the form into more contemporary thriller territory.

Albert's strength in Cat's Claw is the way the McQuaid PI material integrates with China's ongoing herbalist investigation. The cybercrime procedural is competent without being technical-magazine dry. The herbal-lore frame (cat's claw as the title plant) is woven in with care. Fans of Sarah Graves's Eastport mysteries or of Diane Mott Davidson's Goldy Bear novels will recognize the careful contemporary-cozy register operating at its peak.

The case resolves with appropriate weight. The recurring Pecan Springs ensemble carries the chapters.

Four stars. A confident late-series China Bayles novel. The Cat's Claw Susan Wittig Albert book works as part of the long series. Read after a few of the earlier entries; new readers should start with Thyme of Death for the cleanest introduction.