#Review / #Giveaway – Murder, She Knit (A Knit & Nibble Mystery) by Peggy Ehrhart

Dollycas’s Thoughts

Pamela Patterson is hosting this week’s meeting of her knitting group, o.k. one of them only crochets. They get together to do their craft, do a little show and tell, and talk about all the happenings in Arborville, New Jersey. Pamela has invited her old friend Amy Morgan to join the group. They haven’t seen each other in years, so she thought it would be a good chance to get caught up.

When the group arrives at Pamela’s house Amy is a no-show. Pamela is disappointed. As the group leaves, she is busy trying to locate the bowl she had left out for a stray kitten. Instead, she finds her friend Amy in the bushes with a knitting needle stabbed into her chest. Then a few days later she finds another body throw out with the trash at a nearby apartment building. The same building where Amy had been living. Pamela decides the police are not moving fast enough so she starts her own investigation hoping she can knit together the clues to catch the killer before she finds another body.

Pamela Paterson is an editor for a crafting magazine. She works mostly from her home so that gives her plenty of time for other things like knitting with her Knit and Nibble group, picking through her neighbor’s trash for treasures, and hunting down murderers. She is a widow with a daughter in college so she has no one except a stray kitten to rush home for. She is good friends with her neighbor Bettina Fraser who becomes Watson to her Sherlock. The other members of the Knit and Nibble group keep their ears open for pertinent gossip and serve some yummy treats at the weekly meetings. We are just getting to know these characters and being the first book in the series we have barely scratched the surface but so far I find them interesting and engaging.

The story is well written but some of the clues to solve the mystery really didn’t sink in with me at first. Pamela went to Amy’s funeral and to the college where she worked. She was questioning everyone she could. Pamela seemed to have a lot of theories, some seemed pretty out there but soon all the clues dropped into place both for Pamela and me. I was totally surprised.

I love the knitting theme of this series. Prior to my accident that left my right side paralyzed I loved to knit although, I was still learning. In the book, they talk about a harness that allows people to knit one-handed. I have tried many different one-handed techniques but usually become frustrated so I had to search the internet for this device but couldn’t find it.  Maybe the author will give us more info in a future story.

I found this to be a comfortable cozy with genuine characters I want to know better. I am looking forward to seeing how a very frisky feline makes herself at home with Pamela too.