Fool's Puzzle

When you are reading the first book in a series, you hope for the best. The best would be that you are interested enough in the character, her surroundings and situations to continue reading the rest of the books in the series. The worst would be that nothing touched the reader enough to bother looking up the next book in the series. I'm here to say that Earlene Fowler's Fool's Puzzle has brought out the best.

Benni Harper is a widow who has taken up the job of a director of a small town folk-art museum. The museum also rents out studio space to various artists. Benni happens to stumble upon one - a dead one - when she is supposed to be setting up for her first quilt exhibition. Was it a former boyfriend? A stranger? Blackmail? Benni keeps getting hints from the local police chief to leave it alone. But as she asks more questions, she keeps finding more clues about what happened the night her husband died.

Fowler sets up a series filled with an interesting location - a farming/cattle area in small town California, quirky characters - her best friend Elvia is a stitch, and a question of romance between the Hispanic police chief and Benni. She leaves the reader wanting to know what happens next to these folks. A good read.

Death Swatch

Death Swatch is the newest book in Laura Childs' scrapbooking series. It has a great setting - Mardi Gras time in New Orleans - and some great characters in Carmela and her girlfriend Ava. It even has a great mystery - a float designer who has connections to some of the highest crewes that parade, is killed at a Mardi Gras party. (A dark humorous scene is everyone coming to the funeral when they are all hung over from their various Mardi Gras parties from the night before.) He also was an amateur historian interested in maps and Jean Lafitte's treasure. Who has the map and who killed him for it? And is there a treasure? Carmela gets more than she planned for in this hectic and fast paced adventure.

I was actually thrilled that this series finally seems to have hit it's stride. The story is strong and the characters are too. I loved the part where Carmela and her women friends have created their own female crewe. I just wish the author would move the interpersonal relationships forward. Carmela and her ex have been hanging on too long and it seems to be dragging the series and the character development down. I hope this gets taken care of in the next book. A fun read.

Through a Glass, Deadly

Sarah Atwell's Through a Glass, Deadly is her Agatha nominated first book in the glassblowing series. Emmeline Dowell has created a life for herself as a glass artisan in Tucson. She is happy living above her studio and shop, selling her glass pieces and teaching classes in the ancient art of glass making. Finding a body in her furnace is a big surprise. Even more astonishing is the fact that this body was the husband of someone she just met. And this husband was involved with the mob. Em just wants to find the murderer so that things can get back to normal. Having the police over means her ex boyfriend, the chief of police, Matt will soon be by.

Atwell gives us a great exploration of glassblowing - maybe more that you wanted, but I always thought it was a fascinating art - and of the Tucson area. Em is an interesting artist and it is great to see her passion for her work. She is an appealing character, there are great secondary characters and it is a good start for a new series. I'm looking forward to the next one. A good read.

The Lover's Knot

A Lover's Knot: A Someday Quilts Mystery is author Clare O'Donohue's first mystery. (And she knows something about quilting, having worked on the HGTV show Simply Quilts.) Nell Fitzgerald is recovering from a shock. Her fiance has just called off the wedding. She takes a break from the chaos her life has become by visiting her grandmother in upstate N.Y.

While she is resting, she becomes drawn into her grandmother Eleanor's world of the quilt store, good friends, and her quilting circle. And when Eleanor is injured, Nell takes over for her in the store. But when she finds the local flirt and handyman murdered in the store, her outsider status is useful for picking up clues.

The characters are well drawn and their community well written, it makes one want to travel and see this place for oneself. O'Donohue does a nice job with Nell's reawakening from heartbreak to being in a stronger space. And she does it realistically - time wise. The reader cheers her on.

A great first book for a series. Hope there is another.

Knit One, Kill Two

Knit One, Kill Two by Maggie Sefton is the first of her series with Kelly Flynn. Kelly comes back to Colorado because her beloved aunt has been killed. The police think it was a vagrant, but there are questions that need to be answered. Why did her aunt take out a second mortgage for $20,000? Where is the money? And what happened to her aunt's precious family quilt that was hanging in the living room? It is no where to be found. And what about this woman who claims to be her aunt's cousin?

Kelly finds her aunt had more friends than she thought, thanks to the yarn and fiber shop across the street. Even though she is supposed to be here temporarily, Kelly finds support and help from these friends when she starts trying to clear things up. And she finds she is really liking the relaxed atmosphere of the area. Perhaps she will stay? On to the next book!

Sefton does a great job setting up a series by giving us a nice set of secondary characters and a heroine the reader can relate to. And the bits about falling in love with the feel and colors of the textiles and yarns, make us want to go yarn shopping. Even if we know nothing about knitting. Looking forward to reading some more. A good read.

Paper Scissors Death

Paper Scissors Death is the start of a new mystery series by Joanna Campbell Slan. Kiki Lowenstein's husband is found dead and naked in a hotel room. Kiki is in a state of shock, but tries to keep it together for her daughter Anya. She also finds out their finances are a mess, and she is going to have to start over. The good thing is she has a mother-in-law who loves her granddaughter, and Kiki never really felt comfortable in the gated community she lived in anyway. The bad news is the mother-in-law hates her, knew about her husband's affairs and Kiki has a self-esteem problem. But she just can't accept that George would just die of a heart attack. He was too young, and who were the women he was dinning with just before it happened?

Slan gives us a heroine to be proud of. Kiki is forced to grow and get out of her comfort zone - just so she and her daughter can survive. The ironic part is - she gets more help from her "lower-class" friends, then the community she once was a part of. And she manages to get the attention of a police detective who is also not sure this case is over. Her well written friends and their support system are the type of folks that you want behind you when the chips are down.

For anyone who loves scrapbooking, Slan really has the crafting part down pat. Kiki ends up using her scrapbooking skills to earn money, and Slan - an author of non-fiction scrapbooking books, knows her stuff. She flavors Kiki's story with reasons why people love scrabooking. And she writes about the amount of emotion there is in the craft. And best of all she gets it right.

I'm looking forward to the next adventure. Forensic scrapbooking indeed! A great read, for mystery and scrapbooking fans alike.

Crewel World: Cozies Ain't For Sissies

There are those that say certain kinds of mystery books are cozy. I think they categorize cozies, by having amateur sleuths, lovely little towns, and having folks getting murdered "off stage". So what happens when you have a series that has a little Minnesota town, the main character owns a needlework/craft shop, solves mysteries on the side, but the killings are not necessarily pretty. How's getting tossed off a balcony (Crewel Yule), cut by the throat (Cutwork), and having a knitting needle pushed into your brain (Sins and Needles)? Cozy? I think not.

Monica Ferris has created a great character in Betsy Devonshire. And she has given her a interesting group of friends and neighbors. Betsy has a talent for figuring out the little things that solve cases. And she is not so sure she likes this talent. It does bother her that some of these killers are people in the community. Folks that she knows. (Now, that is why I always find these "malice domestic" books creepier - these are not strangers doing the killing!)

She's embarked on this path by accident. She really was just intending to stay with her sister and help her in the store, while she was getting over her divorce. And then her sister was murdered. And she inherited the store and estate. So she stuck around for awhile. And got more involved with her employees and her customers.

Ferris does a nice job fleshing out the secondary characters throughout the series; it is a rare "cozy" that has a regular character that is gay. But Godwin grows and develops through the series. He becomes more than the guy who can match the right thread colors. Various members of the store's regulars - the Monday Bunch - get their own spotlight in the books in the series.

And then there is the needlework. Cozy? Maybe. It has been considered an art form for years. This series is a great way to see how Ferris mixes it in with the mystery. One book has Betsy trying to identify a certain bobbin lace pattern, the next has her researching symbols on a church tapestry. And the store is used as a place where folks in the community can gather. Actually, I wish we had a store like Crewel World locally. These books make me want to take up my cross-stitching again!

So do yourself a favor - start with the first three books in order, and then you can mix them around a bit. And discover the world of Excelsior, Minnesota. A fun series.

Monica Ferris' mystery series featuring Betsy Devonshire:

Thai Die (2008)
Knitting Bones (2007)
Sins and Needles (2006)
Embroidered Truths (2005)
Crewel Yule (2004)
Cutwork (2004)
Hanging by a Thread (2003)
A Murderous Yarn (2002)
Unraveled Sleeve (2001)
A Stitch in Time (2000)
Framed in Lace (1999)
Crewel World (1999)

Stamped Out

Stamped Out by Terri Thayer is the first book in a new series with April Buchert, a interior designer who has moved back to her small home town in Pennsylvania. She's been in California for awhile and is not sure she is glad to be home - even if it means shedding her deadbeat husband behind. But she has not mentioned that to her parents yet. She's still learning to deal with them being in the same town. Her dad and his partner have invited her to work with them on the latest project they are general contracting. And while checking out the site to be demolished, a body is found.

Who is it? No one has gone missing for years. This was a house her dad had worked on before and had bankrupted his company on the job. This house was trouble from the start, with continual changes from the owner, it's eventual fall into disrepair, and status as the local teen hideout. How many old memories will have to be dug up? How many old grudges? April learns that she was not the only one with troubles on her mind, the summer the house was built.

This book has some interesting characters, April who is an artist and trying to come to terms and change things in life, and there is her best friend Deana. Deana is the one organizing and hosting the rubber-stamping parties but her main job is her family's funeral home. (And actually that is pretty interesting.) During these crafting nights - all sorts of gossip is let loose and you learn a lot about the rest of the characters. (This does happen at some craft nights!)

Thayer's book is billed as "A Stamping Sisters Mystery" but really it is just a mystery with some rubber stamping thrown in. Let's hope there is a little more integration between the topics for the next one, because I like the characters and I'm interested in seeing what happens next. A good read.

Papercrafts and Murder

One doesn't often think of home-made card making and murder. It is a rather odd combination. But Elizabeth Bright's mystery series featuring Jennifer Shane and her shop, Custom Card Creations, manages to combine the two rather well.

Jennifer is trying to make a go of her small business in a tourist town. She realizes it will be a struggle (thank goodness - a realistic craft mystery series!), since she has previously worked for her sister's scrapbook store. Rebel Forge, Virginia is a tiny town filled with family and friends. When a murder happens - it is usually someone Jennifer knows. Her brother, the sheriff, wants to keep her out of trouble, but her aunt, sister and her own curiosity keep dragging her in.

Jennifer is a humorous heroine and appealing character. I enjoyed her family - especially her frequently married and divorced aunt. We want her to succeed - in her shop and solving her mystery. I think the creepiest scenario was the one where she received a homemade card from her customer who had just died - telling Jennifer that she - the deceased - had been murdered.

There are only three books in the series so far, and maybe that is all there ever will be. I often wonder how appealing these craft centered stories are to people who are not interested in the craft! But this series is a good read for gloomy fall day. Enjoy.

The books are: Invitation to Murder, Deadly Greetings, Murder and Salutations.

Murder Most Crafty

What can you say about a collection of mystery short stories that have titles like - "Collage to Kill For" (Susan Wittig Albert) or "Oh, What a Tangled Lanyard We Weave" (Parnell Hall)? Murder Most Crafty, edited by Maggie Bruce, is a fun, quirky book. I think you have to like crafts or be a crafter to understand some of the humor in this collection. And yes, crafting can be dangerous - there are dead bodies all over the place.

Some lines from one of my favorite stories - "Call it Macaroni" by Jan Burke

"I don't have anything against the Crafty Fox itself. I am not immune to its charms. When we walked in, I gazed about me in wonder: here were gimcracks and gewgaws out the yingyang.

I was in the modern equivalent of the medieval woman's witch hut: everything for anything, and the knowledge that men didn't really approve of it. For the modern woman, it was a combination toy store, hardware store, and magic shop."

"The spell? It makes this say this to yourself. "I have the time, patience and skill to complete any project. The process will be fun and frustration-free. Friends, neighbors and total strangers who encounter the discreetly placed finished masterpiece in our home will eye it covetously and ask "Where did you buy this?" They will be amazed when I answer, 'I made
it.' "

I nearly fell out of bed laughing at that one. Maybe you had to be there. Read the book. It is fun and frothy and maybe you will discover a new author to boot.

The Blossom Street series

In this series of books, author Debbie Macomber manages to take simple stories about the intersecting lives of women and bring life, enthusiasm and warmth to some great characters. It sounds like it should be easy - but it is never easy creating characters that in the end the reader wants to chat and visit with -long after the story is over.

Her first book, The Shop on Blossom Street, starts with Lidia who is the owner of A Good Yarn knit shop. Lidia is trying to keep her newly opened store running. She is trying to set up a series of classes to bring more people into the store. Her students have had varied lives. Jacqueline is a bored older woman who is convinced her husband is cheating on her. Carol is happily married but is trying to start a family but with only painful results. And Alix is the younger one who has been reared by the school of hard knocks, and whose tough outer shell protects a creative woman inside.

The next book is entitled A Good Yarn. Lidia has started a relationship - but she is scared it will end like all the others. Her new batch of students are: Elise, an retired, older divorced woman who is not so pleased to have her ex-husband come into her ordered life; Bethanne is a mother with teenagers, who is going through the fallout of a divorce; and Courtney, a teenager, has just moved to the area to stay with her grandmother who has signed her up for the class.

Will Lidia make a success of the shop? Will the others meet their goals, and deal with the surprises - both good and bad - that happen in their lives? Macomber does deal with their disappointments and set backs. That is one of her talents in making these characters seems real. They could be the gal down the street or your mother's best friend. She also brings a nice inter generational theme to most of the stories. It continues to give you the feeling that you could be a part of this group of women. Macomber manages to combine their lives and twisting story lines to provide satisfying good reads. Try them. But I warn you - they might give you a craving to knit!