A plain vanilla murder

China and Ruby Wilcox are presenting their annual Not Just Plain Vanilla Workshop--always a huge hit with customers at Thyme & Seasons Herb Shop. But events turn deadly and China soon finds herself teaming up with the very pregnant Pecan Springs police chief Sheila Dawson to solve a vanilla-flavored murder. There's no shortage of suspects--a betrayed lover a disgruntled graduate student jealous colleagues and a gang of orchid smugglers. But the lethal roots of this mystery reach into the dark tropical jungles of Mexico where the vanilla vine was first cultivated. At stake: a lucrative plant patent an orchid that is extinct in the wild and the life of an innocent little girl..