Dyeing Up Loose Ends

May 15, 2018
New mom Kelly Flynn takes a stroll down Memory Lane before helping a younger friend walk down the aisle.Now that Jack, the son whose baby hat she was knitting in her last adventure (Only Skein Deep, 2018), has turned 4, Kelly has a little more time to spend at Pete's Porch, the cafe that shares space with Lambspun, her favorite knitting shop. As she sits sipping coffee, waitress Cassie gets Kelly to tell her the details of all the murders she's solved since her return to Fort Connor after the death of her Aunt Helen. Kelly suddenly realizes that Cassie, who's a great listener, would be just perfect to provide day care for Jack. So she persuades her friends Megan and Marty, whose daughter, Molly, is Jack's best bud, and Lisa and Greg, whose twins, Michael and Natalie, are running Lisa ragged, to form an impromptu babysitting co-op, hiring college student Cassie along with her boyfriend, Eric, to watch all the kids during their summer break. Days later, Cassie and Eric share a plan of their own with Kelly. They want to get married over the summer so they can move into a married-student apartment in the fall of their junior year. The couple have everything laid out: how much they need to save to cover tuition and board, how to allocate time between classes and part-time jobs, even setting aside a few days for a brief honeymoon. It's a good thing they're so organized, since their wedding planner finds another murder on her hands when Pete's other waitress, Julie, turns up in her car with a bullet in her head.Sefton spins out so many threads that it's a lucky thing that the murder basically solves itself.

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May 21, 2018
Sefton’s rambling 16th knitting cozy (after 2017’s Only Skein Deep) gets off to a slow start with dozens of pages devoted to past crimes solved by series lead Kelly Flynn, an accountant in Fort Connor, Colo. Much of the action focuses on the quotidian lives of Kelly and her group of close friends, all patrons of the Lambspun knitting shop, who are involved in planning a wedding for the niece of the owners of Pete’s Porch Café. Meanwhile, Julie, a cheerful waitress from the café, is found dead in her car with blood all over one side of her head. Apparently, Julie shot herself, but Kelly has her doubts. Using her amateur sleuthing skills and the help of her retired police detective friend, Burt Parker, Kelly gets on the trail of a murderer, though the reader is likely to put the pieces together faster than she does. Series fans will enjoy catching up with the likable, kindhearted characters. Others, however, will be disappointed by the book’s padding and repetition, such as multiple chapters ending in laughter. Agent: Jessica Faust, BookEnds.