A Plain Vanilla Murder (China Bayles Mystery #27) by Susan Wittig Albert

China and Ruby Wilcox are putting on a class about vanilla.  It's well attended and both of them feel good about the presentation.  China is friends with the police chief, who is very pregnant.  When the chief finds out a botany professor has been killed, it doesn't take long for her to determine it wasn't suicide as everyone would like to think.  China is good at listening to local gossip and ferreting out the truth so she's anxious to help the chief solve this crime.

Persevero Press and Net Galley let me read this book for review (thank you).  It will be published June 4th.

They find the professor isn't a very nice man.  He sleeps with students, was involved in an accident where one student died, seems to be importing rare orchids and selling them using his work space he created without permission using grant money.  He has lots of people who hate him from his ex-wife to the people he works with, to the families of the girls he sleeps with.  Who hated him enough to kill him?

Learning about vanilla was interesting and it was easy to dislike the man who died.  When the killer is determined, you almost want to spare them.  They suffered a very bad hurt and they just hurt him back.  Ms. Albert makes you care about her characters and writes good mysteries.  See if you can guess who the murderer is before the end...