Sally Goldenbaum | Knitting a Mystery

Readers sometimes ask why so many mystery writers structure their stories around a theme—like food or knitting or gardening or bookstores. Why isn’t a plain old murder enough? Who needs herbs or bamboo needles or a trowel when you have a dead body? It’s a good question and made me think. How would the four protagonists in the seaside knitters mystery be different if they didn’t knit, if they were simply “the seaside women.”

I’m not an expert knitter so I know that’s not the reason they knit. I’m a knitter-in-training. So why?

Here’s what I think:

I think the seaside knitters mysteries are as much about relationships and women’s friendship as they are about knitting. But the knitting provides a kind of centering, a place to bring Nell, Cass and Birdie to Izzy’s Yarn Studio regularly. It gives them a ready-made place to interact, to gossip, to develop their friendship in new ways.

In the newest mystery, A FINELY KNIT MURDER (Seaside Knitters Mystery #9) knitting provides a special peg in the mystery when Birdie’s granddaughter lures them to her wonderful Sea Harbor school to teach a knitting course (the course inspired by the Walden School belief that knitting encourages both mental and emotional gain). They soon become involved in finding the murderer of a contentious school board member.

Knitting also provides a metaphor for the way Nell, Birdie, Cass, and Izzy think. In A FINELY KNIT MURDER they carefully and methodically knit together the pieces of a puzzle —examining a fired teacher’s motives, problems among the board members, a headmistress’s contentious relationship—as they track down the murderer.

And lastly, yarn is simply so tangible and visceral and sensual that it provides a feeling that can soften the harshness of murder and at the same time heighten and stimulate the senses. It injects a sensuousness into the mystery, just like writing about food does. Sinking ones fingers into a basketful of Izzy’s buttercup yellow cashmere yarn, for example, or savoring Nell’s garlic grilled shrimp salad with fresh flakes of basil sprinkled on top—and clinking together four glasses of Birdie’s chilled pinot gris—are sure ways to stimulate and sharpen the senses and help the knitters of Sea Harbor explore the intricacies of a school board member’s untimely demise in A FINELY KNIT MURDER.

Although readers of the seaside mysteries won’t learn to knit as they join Izzy, Nell, Birdie, and Cass on a Thursday evening in the yarn shop, I hope they take away—not only a feeling of mystery and puzzles, of friendship and caring—but the urge to sink one’s fingers into a tempting pile of cashmere and cotton and luxurious angora wool yarn.

About A FINELY KNIT MURDER

In the newest mystery from the national bestselling author of MURDER IN MERINO, the sleuthing skills of Izzy Chambers Perry and the Seaside Knitters are tested as death mars the beginning of the school year… Seaside Knitter Birdie Favazza is thrilled that her granddaughter Gabby will be visiting for the fall and attending the Sea Harbor Community Day School. Gabby loves the school, with its newly-adopted progressive curriculum, and she loves that the Seaside Knitters are teaching knitting as part of the enrichment program. It’s a huge success, and on crisp autumn days, girls camp out on the terraces, knitting up hats for charity.

But not everyone is happy with the direction the school is taking. Outspoken board member Blythe Westerland has sparked tempers with her determination to unravel the current administration. Then, on the evening of an elegant school event, Blythe’s body is found near the school boathouse. With a killer on the loose, Birdie is determined to keep Gabby safe. Working together, the Seaside Knitters carefully unravel the layers of Blythe’s complicated life, bringing faculty members and town residents under scrutiny. Before the cast-off rows are made on the students’ projects, the knitters will need to stitch together the evidence to see if a murderer has been walking beside them all along.

About Sally Goldenbaum

Sally Goldenbaum is the author of three dozen novels, most currently the Seaside Knitters Mystery Series, set in a seaside town north of Boston. She lives in land-locked Kansas but visits Cape Ann, the geographic inspiration for her series (and home of three amazing grandchildren and their parents) every chance she gets.