Witches' Bane, Susan Wittig Albert

My first read of the new year. This is the second in a series of mysteries featuring China Bayles as herbologist/amateur detective.

China Bayles gave up the rat race in Houston, where she was a successful defense attorney, for the quiet life in the small town of Pecan Springs in the Texas hill country. She runs Thyme and Seasons, an herb shop, while her best friend Ruby runs Crystal Cave, the town's only New Age shop, in the space next door.

It's almost Halloween, and the town has had a number of strange incidents that have many townspeople believing some kind of witchcraft or dark magic is being done. There's been chickens killed, a goat slaughtered, and a cross burned in someone's yard, and then one of the town's wealthy citizens receives a voodoo doll. It doesn't help that Ruby has been teaching Tarot classes, which in a small town is tantamount to teaching witchcraft, or that a local group of Wiccans holds their ceremony marking the beginning of a new year on Halloween night, complete with people dancing around a fire in white robes.

When the same woman who recieved the voodoo doll is murdered on Halloween night with a knife stolen from Ruby's shop, China finds herself trying to help her friend prove her innocence. Suspicion is then placed on Andrew, Ruby's latest boyfriend, and even though China has never trusted him, she finds herself trying to solve the mystery to set Ruby's mind at ease.

Although I had a pretty good suspicion of who'd done it before China solved the case (not from the very beginning, mind you, but shortly before it dawned on her), I can't wait to read more of these, to see how Ruby gets revenge on the preacher who's been picketing their shops, to see whether China decides to move in with McQuaid, or even if she starts calling him by his first name, just to check in and see what's going on with everyone.

Witches' Bane, Susan Wittig Albert, (c)1993 - checked out from my local library. **** (out of 5)