Maggie and the Black Sheep Yarn Shop regulars hie themselves
away for a new agey spa and retreat weekend in this third
installment to the series. As Maggie struggles to fill in
for an instructor who backs
out at the last minute, the rest of the crew experience the
dubious benefits of rampant New Age encounter sessions and
enough health food to choke a llama. They enjoy themselves
more than they had expected, until a murder puts a pall over
all the sweetness and light spouted by the organizers.
The owner of the Lodge is the charming and sincere Dr. Max,
darling of the talk show circuit as he promotes his new book
on getting what you want from life by leaving the past
behind. After a moonlit night on a mini-camping event (meant
to commune in meditation with 'Sister Moon'), Lucy and Dana
awake to find the small clearing filled with a crime scene
team, and one of the retreat participants being carried out
of his hut in a black bag. Newly famous pop-psych guru with
lashings of sticky sweet mystic banality Dr. Maxwell
Flemming 'Dr. Max' is either the
intended victim or the prime suspect. It's difficult to tell
which. There are plenty of people willing to kill him, and
even more reasons for him to keep someone quiet,
permanently, as it comes out that not all the facts he lists
in his bestselling book have anything to do with reality.
Canadeo stays true to her readers by keeping the sense of
sisterhood alive and well in A STITCH BEFORE DYING. She has
written a reasonably good mystery with the familiar
characters' stories kept front and center. Cozy fans can
look forward to an enjoyable read.
Stitching it together . . . The Black Sheep Knitters: a fivesome with a knack for knitting—and for solving crimes. hen Maggie Messina, owner of the Black Sheep Knitting Shop, is invited to give knitting workshops at a Berkshires spa resort, she manages to negotiate a cottage that fits all five of the Black Sheep for what promises to be a weekend of knitting bliss. But while the friends are expert at counting stitches, they haven’t counted on murder. Guests and staff at the Crystal Lake Inn are as varied as a mixed bag of yarn, but most colorful is certainly the owner, charismatic self-help guru and former psychiatrist Dr. Max Flemming. The doctor may have told all in a revealing autobiography, but from his ex-wife to the widow of his former business partner—both employees at the inn—Max seems mired in shadows from his past. And when a killer strikes during a mountaintop retreat, the Black Sheep wonder what the good doctor might be hiding. The police seem to be following the wrong thread. But while Maggie’s workshops have given the knitters a unique view of the tensions at the little inn, can they make sense of a crime that is as complexly stranded as a Fair Isle sweater? When the killer murders a second time, the Black Sheep wonder if they’ve dropped a stitch and put themselves in mortal danger. . . .
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