Dieser Beitrag enthält Werbung – advertising.
If you come from New York or Chicago, these probably seem like small-potato pleasures. But people around here grew up on them, find them nourishing, and want to pass them on to their children. The Fourth and Labor Day and Pecan Festival Weekend are big events in the life of a small town, and we celebrate them together, knowing that we aren’t really celebrating the occasion, we’re celebrating each other and the hope that holds us together.
This sense of quiet community is a strong contrast to the competitive life I used to lead as a criminal defense attorney in a big Houston law firm. … I lived like a junkie on the adrenaline rush of legal skirmishes and courtroom battles. But the job was a good one, the best in the city, at least according to my friends, who kept telling me how lucky I was to have it. My work pumped up my ego, paid mucho dinero, and praised to promote me to senior partner sometime before menopause.
I didn’t quite make it. A few months short of forty, I realized that I was deeply disgusted with the whole thing, with the sleaze and the lies, with the criminals and, yes, with the courts.
Nine out of ten of my clients were guilty as sin, which meant that if I was good enough , smart enough, and aggressive enough to win then acquittals, nine guilty people went free. I began asking myself wether I felt morally good about this, and when the answer began to come up no more times than it came up yes, I turned in my resignation and moved to Pecan Springs, where I used my ill-gotten gains to buy a small herb shop in a century-old stone building with living quarters in the back. I make a decent living, I love what I do, and I’m happy.
from: Rosemary Remembered
Small Town Crime
Let’s start with …
Beginning of the 90s there wasn’t any Internet. Most people used landline phones, the pager was the ultimate mobile unit … China Bayles starts her new life, after quitting her job as an attorney of defense, in this ambiance. The novels cover her life for about the next dozen years … However, she arrives in our modern world, a world with Internet, blogging, smartphones, notebooks … (in short: China ages around twelve years during a period of more than 30 years.)
… and there is another matter:
China becomes a herb and plant specialist in her new life when managing her shop. So all novels are dedicated to some special herbs or plants which play a role for the crime, the investigation and the conviction of the perpetrator. Be sure you’ll learn a lot about herbs and plants.
China leaves her job as a lawyer, buys a herb shop (and the building) and becomes a business owner in a small town. She manages the challenges of her new career and relaxes. However, also in a small, peaceful town there is crime … mainly murder.
It’s common knowledge that China is a lawyer. So often people ask her for advice. In addition China is nosy and likes to look into any chitchat or secret she hears about. At the end there is a crime i. e. a corpse – often more corpses will follow. Mostly families are involved and certain family members who start their own way of correcting their fate. Sometimes there are crimes resulting from any evildoing decades ago. Sometimes it’s a business affair when competitors appear onstage. Sometimes … The art of murder in Pecan Springs is simple: car crashes, poison, strangling … gunshot wounds – firearms are no scarce commodity in Texas. At the end China gets involved – always. Her background in law, her wit and the ability to draw conclusions help China to solve any mystery.
China isn’t alone. Soon after starting her herb shop business she makes friends with owner of the shop next to hers. It’s a New Age shop. All fits perfectly – there are many synergies between herbs and New Age basics. Both women decide to embark on new business ideas like a tearoom hiring a friend who is a great cook … They create newsletters and offer workshops. Finally they have their own web page. So China may rely on a network of friends and business people active in the same line of business.
China gets also in contact with the police – of course, after all she investigates crime cases and especially murder cases. At the beginning the police isn’t amused, but soon China makes friends with some officers and detectives. So she has soon another network to rely on.
… and of course she meets a man with whom she falls in love. He is a former detective turned into private investigator, a successful chase of career. Also he is divorced and his son, seven years old at the beginning of the series lives with him. China hesitates what to do, but love prevails over all concerns. They buy a house for themselves … and they marry … and then there is a herb garden. There are also digs and cats and a parrot – not to mention the mini-zoo the kid creates … Then there is another child when China decides to adopt her niece when orphaned. The house is always full.
China enjoys her life, her family with all the trouble from the kids and especially the success of her herb business. Her husband isn’t amused when China starts slowly an investigation in some crime because he thinks that crime is always dangerous and may harm his beloved China. Remember,ber that he was a detective once …
In short:
There’s a lot going on in Pecan Springs, although actually a quiet, peaceful community in the countryside where lots of people would like to live.