Genre: Mystery
Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9781496713315
Kensington Publishing
288 Pages
$7.99; $1.99 Amazon
April 30, 2019
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Knit and Nibble's numbers are growing! In addition to a litter of adorable kittens, the knitting club just welcomed their newest member, Caralee Lorimer, who's learning to knit for her upcoming role in A Tale of Two Cities. According to the amateur actress, the behind-the-scenes drama at hte theater is getting downright catty, and Caralee wants a reckoning for Arborville's pretentious suburbanites. Her claws are out, and just like her character inthe play, Caralee is ready to name names. But before she can finish her snitchy stitches, Caralee is killed in a suspicious theater accident. Someone thinks they've staged a perfect murder, but Pamela and her Knit and Nibblers are ready to pounce on the real killer...before it's curtains for anyone else!
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Pamela Paterson is a widow who lives in Arborville, New Jersey and does online editing for a craft magazine. She started the Knit and Nibble knitting club, and they have a new member - Caralee Lorimer, an actress who's learning to knit for her role in A Tale of Two Cities. But it's not long before they hear of an accident at the theater, and Caralee is found dead. But both Pamela and her best friend Bettina think it was murder, and set out to find the truth. Unfortunately, it's not going to be easy, and their suspects all have a reason to want the woman dead...
This is the third book in the series and I've actually been reading them in order. I guess my main problem with it is I don't understand the author's obsession with dinnerware and food. She needs to describe each plate that is used by each member of the club -- whether it's wedding china or thrift store finds, and then every dish that is made and served is described in innumerable sentences. Honestly, I don't care who serves what on which dish. Unless it's the murder weapon, what does it matter? It's pages of the story that don't need to be there, and takes away from the mystery. That and the fact that we're told every single thing that Bettina wears and all Pamela ever wears is jeans and a cotton top.
Pamela isn't quite forty, but she acts much older. She doesn't act like an amateur sleuth, but more like a nosy neighbor. She doesn't have the "sleuthing qualities" that I've come to love in most cozies, and she's just nosy enough to want to know what is going on, including wondering about where her handsome neighbor is, but not enough to find out.
Then, she has six kittens to "dispose of." I say that because she obviously knows nothing about kittens or cats. As a lifetime cat owner, you don't dispose of kittens by giving them away to just anyone (for the record, I spay and neuter my cats). Where was the mention of taking them to the vet? Was she planning on giving them their first shots? Did she care if they were immunized? Even if she didn't plan on the kittens, she should have been a responsible pet owner. Make sure the cats will be well cared for and kept indoors. I'd rather read about this than someone's wedding china. Enough of my rant...
Back to the story: trying to figure out who killed Caralee. When it's discovered that she left clues behind, both Pamela and Bettina decide to look further for a killer. They come across several suspects, and they try and figure out what it was that Caralee was trying to say. What they did find was that Caralee hated Arborville, and some of the people in it. She wasn't a likeable person at all in my book.
When the ending comes and the killer is revealed, I had it figured out before that, but the motive wasn't worth killing for, in my opinion. The author also did what she did in the last book -- left questions unanswered that I would have liked to have known, leaving me feeling as if the food mattered more than resolutions to some of the questionable characters. But ah, well...I don't expect them to be told in the next book, either.
More on Peggy Ehrhart's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/e/peggy-ehrhart/
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