Another Review at MyShelf.Com

A Crafter Knits a Clue
Handcrafted Mystery #1
BY Holly Quinn

Crooked Lane
October 18, 2018/ ISBN
Mystery/Cozy

Reviewed by  Laura Hinds

The premise of this new mystery series is that Samantha “Sammy” Kane has gone back to her hometown for her friend Kate’s funeral. She decides to stay and take over Kate’s business, a craft store named Community Craft. Three years later Sammy is still there living and working in Heartsford, WI. When Ingrid Wilson, who has just opened The Yarn Barn calls and ask for help with hanging a knit afghan is her shop’s window, Sammy tells her young assistant Carter that he should stay and keep working and she would go and help Ingrid. After a short intentional delay to make Ingrid wait, Sammy walks over and discovers that Ingrid is dead. Murdered with a dark green aluminum knitting needle to the throat.

Ingrid was unlikable and thus there are plenty of suspects in town. When Detective Liam Nash arrests woodwork Miles Danbury, Holly wants to clear her friend’s name so she sets out to do some detecting on her own. But if she gets too close will the killer use another needle to stop her in her sleuthing tracks permanently?

Overall this is a typical cozy mystery and the theme of craft shop owner cum sleuth has been used in several series over the years, often quite successfully. Whether this series can cut the mustard in the tightly knit crafty mystery genre or not remains to be seen. I feel rather neutral about this book. I neither loved it nor disliked it. The protagonist could stand to gain some maturity in the way she relates to people, so perhaps that could be used as a point of reference in a future book. Maybe a “how she grows up and why” type of story?

Give this one a chance. If the series finds a firm enough footing in the cozy market, it could go far. If readers don’t try it, it might not achieve lift off and we’d miss a potentially delightful series.

Reviewed 2018
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