China and Ruby Wilcox are presenting their annual ”Not Just Plain Vanilla Workshop,” always a big success with customers at Thyme & Periods Herb Shop. But someone involved with the workshop is normally driven by a dangerous motive, and China quickly discovers herself teaming up with the very pregnant Pecan Springs police chief Sheila Dawson to solve a vanilla-flavored murder. Sheila, happy to get out from behind the chief’s table, is normally investigating the loss of life of a botany professor, a prominent researcher focusing on vanilla orchids. China is wanting to greatly help a longtime friend: the inactive professor’s ex-wife and a excellent believe in his murder. However, there’s no shortage of additional suspects: a betrayed fan, a disgruntled graduate pupil, jealous colleagues, and a gang of orchid smugglers. But the lethal roots of this secret reach back into the dark exotic jungles of Mexico, where the vanilla vine was first cultivated. At stake is usually a lucrative flower patent, an orchid that is extinct in the open, and the life span of the innocent litttle lady.