Love Lies Bleeding by Susan Wittig Albert - Review of the sixth book in A China Bayles Mystery series

Love Lies Bleeding
Sixth book in A China Bayles Mystery series

by Susan Wittig Albert

China Bayles and her friend Ruby get involved in solving the murder of ex Texas Ranger, Roy Adcock. They know his wife Dolores although she was not a close friend. The Whiz, China's friend Justine from her college days, asked the two to do some investigating, China said no but Ruby was excited to do it. So, with China letting Ruby doing the investigating at first, going along reluctantly, she soon gets involved herself, but not all because of Ruby.

China's live-in boyfriend, McQuaid, is also an ex Texas Ranger who quit to teach college. China discovers he may be having an affair with Peggy on Valentine's Day, when she was expecting him to propose to her, yet again, but this time she was going to surprise him and say yes. Her surprise was that he didn't propose and when they returned home after dinner that night, she overheard a  conversation when she picked up the phone to call her mother, but didn't get a chance to confront him for a day or so. The day they were having 'the' discussion, she got a phone call and as McQuaid was listening and recognizing names, he told her to go with Ruby to see what she could find out about the murder.

This is my third cozy mystery and the first by this author, I really liked this one! Even though they are not married and he's having an affair, there is not sexual talk, so that is one thing I liked. I was so pulled in that I stayed up till 3:00 A.M. finishing it one night.

This is the sixth book in the China Bayles Mystery Series. I read this one first because I needed a cozy mystery with the word Love in it to read during the month of February, and there aren't too many like that. There are 21 books in the series so far, 19 of them are published, number 20 will come out in March 2012 and number 21 in April 2013. I will definetely be going back and reading the first five, and go on from there. Great writing Susan.

Here's the link to the 

2012 Cozy Mystery Challenge: Feb. Mini Challenge