Mystery China

Herbalist China Bayles' latest adventure takes her to the mountains of North Carolina, where her friend Dorothea Harper serves as the director and curator of the Hemlock House Library, a priceless collection of rare gardening books housed in a haunted mountainside mansion that once belonged to Sunny Carswell, a reclusive heiress. But the most valuable book - A Curious Herbal, created by Elizabeth Blackwell in the 1730s - is missing, and Dorothea is under suspicion.

Thirteen year-old Johnny Merrimon had the perfect life: happy parents and a twin sister that meant the world to him. But Alyssa went missing a year ago, stolen off the side of a lonely street with only one witness to the crime. His family shattered, his sister presumed dead, Johnny risks everything to explore the dark side of his hometown in a last, desperate search.

In The White Mirror, Li Du, an imperial librarian and former exile in 18th-century China, is now an independent traveler. He is journeying with a trade caravan bound for Lhasa when a detour brings them to a valley hidden between mountain passes. On the icy planks of a wooden bridge, a monk sits in contemplation. Closer inspection reveals that the monk is dead, apparently of a self-inflicted wound. His robes are rent, revealing a strange symbol painted on his chest.

The Chinese police have once more been forced to enlist the services of American forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell, this time to investigate a series of four horrific ritual executions in Beijing. Detective Li Yan is determined to discover just how one of the victims in particular, an American diplomat, became caught up in the slaying. And he is arguably even more determined to have nothing to do with Campbell, whom he finds simultaneously too foreign and too... familiar. The personal polarity that once attracted Yan and Campbell again strengthens their professional partnership.

The island city-state of Singapore harbors unique customs and traditions largely unknown to the West. A booming economy and embrace of conformity overshadow its gambling dens, red-light districts, and a collective passion for ghostly and gory tales. Now, in Singapore Noir, some of its best contemporary authors delve into its seedy side.

Olivia Andrews is locally famous for her blog and podcast, Forget Me Not: A Crime Victim’s Storyboard, which is dedicated to telling the stories of victims of crime. Now she has a stunning story to tell about a decades-old murder mystery involving a prominent citizen of Pecan Springs—someone who isn’t the man everybody thinks he is. But she is killed by a hit-and-run driver while she’s out jogging early one morning. Was it an accident—or something else? Her sister wants to know.

When ex-lawyer and herb-shop proprietor China Bayles’s friend Jo dies of an apparent suicide, China looks behind the quaint façade of her new home of Pecan Springs, Texas, and takes a suspicious look at everyone. And though she finds lots of friendly faces, China is sure that one of them hides the heart of a killer.

When a mass grave containing 18 mutilated female corpses is discovered in Shanghai, detective Li Yan is sent from Beijing to establish if the bodies are linked to an unsolved murder in the capital. Here, Li will be working with Mei Ling, deputy head of Shanghai's serious crime squad. Mei Ling is a formidable woman: a fact that is not lost on Li's on-again, off-again lover, forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell. But when Campbell learns that the victims were subjected to "live" autopsies, she swallows her pride and joins Li Yan and Mei Ling in the hunt for the murderer.

Troth Montgomery spends most of her time disguised as a man, going by the name of Jin Kang. While working as a translator and a spy, she encounters viscount and adventurer Kyle Renbourne, and realizes that her life is about to take a significant turn. Relieved to discover the true identity of the lovely Troth, Kyle feels passion ignite and is driven to possess her. Together, they start on a dangerous quest, but fate steps in and separates the two lovers. Though haunted by despair, passion and danger, Troth becomes the woman she was destined to be.

On the dark waterside docks of Shanghai, a photographer is recording cargo being secretly loaded when he's brutally killed and his camera destroyed. Shortly thereafter Covert-One director Fred Klein brings the word to the President that there's a Chinese cargo ship rumored to be carrying tons of chemicals to be used by a rogue nation to create new biological weapons. Klein is ordered to get the President solid proof of what the Chinese ship is ferrying.

Here is the compelling story of six American families and their desperate attempt to keep their newly adopted Chinese children. Before leaving China, authorities demand the infants be returned without offering the slightest explanation. What if three of the families refuse? What if they risk everything and attempt a renegade run through China with the babies? Featuring a pulse-pounding narration by George Guidall, China Run will keep listeners on the edge of their seats from start to finish.

When the body of an American archaeologist is found floating in the Yangzi River, Ministry of Public Security agent Liu Hulan and her husband, American attorney David Stark, are dispatched to Site 518 to investigate. As Hulan scrutinizes this death—or is it a murder?—David, on behalf of the National Relics Bureau, tries to discover who has stolen from the site an artifact that may prove to the world China’s claim that it is the oldest uninterrupted civilization on earth.

Susan Wittig Albert has won critical acclaim anda devoted following for her China Bayles mysteries featuring beloved herb shop and tearoom owner China. In Wormwood, the death of a woman in a pool - where a Shaker woman drowned in 1912 - sets the stage for a perplexing whodunit.

When a prominent animal researcher is found hanged in the midst of angry protests against his experiments, suspicion falls on biology professor Dottie Riddle. Known as the Cat Lady of Pecan Springs, Dottie's sympathy for strays—and the victim's distaste for them—gives the police reason to think she may be capable of murder. But China Bayles doesn't think so. She hires a lawyer for Dottie and starts looking around for clues. But she soon discovers that digging up old evil is a dirty and dangerous business...

After months of forced labour, a Roman emperor's guards escape from a Persian mine. They meet a mysterious, exiled Chinese Prince, Dan Qing, and agree to safeguard his journey home. Thus begins the adventures of the Romans and the Prince as they journey to China. There the Westerners will discover that they aren't the first of their kind to arrive in China - they were preceded centuries before by the survivors of the "lost legion".

While living in America, a brilliant Chinese scientist is chosen to work on the US military’s most classified technologies for over a decade. Suddenly, he is outlandishly targeted by the FBI, traded in a prisoner exchange by President Eisenhower and must return to China. This episode ultimately led to China’s development of a military-run secret space program (SSP) using exotic electromagnetic propulsion systems now challenging US military dominance on Earth and in outer space.

Colonel Matt Pontowski, grandson of a former US president, attempts to boost the morale of his pilots who know their killer A-10 Warthog aircraft are due to be phased out. When trouble erupts in Hong Kong and southern China, his wing volunteers for a dangerous undercover mission against the world's most feared and volatile superpower. A massacre is looming and millions of innocent people are at risk. Pontowski and his volunteers are now reluctant to withdraw, despite orders, as they initiate their own plans to overthrow the brutal regime that has been gaining power.

The Cook, the Crook, and the Real Estate Tycoon, by prize-winning Chinese novelist Liu Zhenyun, is a novel of Beijing that paints a microcosm of contemporary China, dealing with classes at the two extremes: the super rich and the migrant workers who make them rich through deceit and corruption. The protagonist, Liu Yuejin, is a worksite cook and small-time thief whose bag is stolen. In searching for it, he stumbles upon another bag, which contains a flash disk that chronicles high-level corruption.

New York Times best-selling author Susan Wittig Albert is widely acclaimed for her cozy China Bayles mystery series. In Cat’s Claw, China’s friend Police Chief Sheila Dawson takes center stage. When local computer guru Larry Kirk is found dead, many are convinced it was suicide over his recent divorce. But Sheila has a hunch there’s more to this case than meets the eye - especially when evidence surfaces that Larry was being stalked.

A vehicle crammed with dozens of dead Chinese immigrants is found in Southern Texas. Forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell must put aside her horror and find out why. Detective Li Yan - an even more unwelcome memory for Campbell - has arrived stateside to investigate a link in the case to a lucrative trade in illegal laborers. Li and Campbell will soon find that the crime scene hides another secret: a biological time bomb linking traffickers, politicians, and migrants in Beijing, Washington, and Texas - posing multiple countries one very singular threat.