Mystery

It took me over two months to get through Knitting Bones, eleventh in Monica Ferris' Needlecraft mysteries. As far as I'm concerned, the counted cross-stitch and appliquéd foxes and the cat on the dust jacket were the best things about the book.

The point of view was shared by Betsy Devonshire, Godwin 'Goddy' DuLac, and a handsome thief named Tony Milan. Yes, this method does allow us to get to see our villain's motives and how he gets things done, but I don't like him or find him interesting.

Both Betsy and Tony suffer from broken bones, though Tony has more of them. Goddy is playing Archie Goodwin to Betsy's Nero Wolfe, except Archie was an experienced professional and Goddy isn't. In fact, Goddy gets to find out that Betsy's amateur sleuthing is more difficult than he thought. Not that Goddy doesn't make an important discovery or two that help to clear the murder victim's good name (nice for the widow).

I just skimmed page 217 to the end. Yeah, the climax was okay, but I wanted to get this over with so I could go on to more interesting books.

If you knit, there's a pattern for mitered squares by Rosemary Kossel at the end of the book.

Dog lovers are out of luck, but cat lovers have Sophie to enjoy.
Crow lovers get to enjoy a bird for whom several persons are attempting to let him escape the Minnesota death penalty for wild animals too injured to be fully restored to health. (It's real. I looked it up online. I'd hoped it had been changed since this book was published in 2007.) ( )

This is book 11 in the Needlecraft Mystery series. I have been trying to read them in order, but had to skip books 9 and 10 because I couldn't find them locally and didn't feel like ordering them online at this time.
So, I started in on book 11. So much has happened that I missed. Jill is married, has a 2 year old daughter and has quit the police force!! Godwin's boyfriend has been murdered!! I couldn't believe how fast their stories have moved along.

In this one, Betsy is laid up with a broken leg, so Godwin does much of the sleuthing. This was interesting, as the main suspect has amnesia from a car accident, and doesn't remember committing any crime. There was also a subplot involving a crow, which was funny.

Fans of the series will enjoy reading this. ( )

This is a new series to me as it was one of my recycled finds. I love cozy mysteries and it looks like this needle work themed series is a good find. The store owner and the store manager help out the local police department to discover that there are many levels in this crime. Fun characters! ( )

You can plan all you want, but it’s what you can’t plan for that really messes up your life. In this story, Betsy falls off a horse and breaks her leg. Laid up in her apartment, she must rely on Goddy to run her shop, fill in at a convention, and do some amateur sleuthing when funds go missing. But things aren’t all rosy for the thief, either, when he is in a car accident, and loses his memory. While this cozy is not a nail-biting whodunit, it is still quite enjoyable. The eleventh novel in the Needlecraft Mystery series, these characters are like old friends, if you have been reading through the series. It was nice to have a tale that lets Goddy shine, and the discussion in which Betsy and Jill try to enlighten Goddy on sleuthing skills was priceless. ( )