Dead Man's Bones

Susan Wittig Albert has been writing the China Bayles mysteries since 1992, and Dead Man's Bones is one of the strongest mid-period entries. China is an ex-attorney running an herb shop in the small Texas town of Pecan Springs, with a husband in law enforcement and a cast of regulars at the shop. The murder this time emerges from a community theater production of Macbeth, which is a wonderfully nervy choice for a cozy.

What makes the China Bayles books better than most of their genre is the texture. Albert has a PhD in English literature, and her cozies treat their material with a level of background research that the form does not require but rewards. The herbal lore is real. The Texas Hill Country geography is real. The motives are usually the kind of slow-burning resentments that small-town life rewards.

The Macbeth production hangs over the book in a way that resolves with appropriate Shakespearean weight. Four stars. A great mid-series entry. The earlier books (Thyme of Death is the first) hold up too if you want to start at the beginning.