Maggie Sefton and her
Knitting mystery series
Reviewed by Janelle Martin
After completing her first real estate based mystery in
early 2003, Maggie Sefton began working on several potential
non-fiction
articles for magazines. One of them,
interviewing knitters
about how knitting had affected their lives and relationships, led her
to a
local yarn shop about which every knitter she knew raved.
A quick call resulted in an invitation from
the owner to visit and join one of the knitting groups.
That
visit resulted in a reaction similar to the one Kelly Flynn
experiences on walking through the door of House of Lambspun knitting
shop in
the early pages of Knit One, Kill Two.
Colour was everywhere, piles of silk, wool, cotton, mohair and
alpaca
just begging to be touched. The siren
call of yarn slowly beguiled Sefton, she learned to knit, and shortly
thereafter Kelly Flynn walked on stage, the way “all of my characters
first
appear in my imagination.”
Knit One, Kill Two - #1
Kelly Flynn returns to Colorado
to attend her Aunt Helen’s funeral and wrap up her affairs. Accompanied by her rottweiler Carl, Kelly
takes up residence in her aunt’s cottage across from House of Lambspun,
the
local knitting shop. An accountant,
Kelly can’t understand why her fiscally conservative aunt would borrow
$20,000
just days before her death.
Following the trail of her aunt’s finances, Kelly
slowly
becomes convinced her aunt’s death wasn’t an accident.
With the help of her new friends at House of
Lambspun, Kelly learns to knit and how to solve a murder.
Needled to Death
- #2
Feeling at home in Fort
Connor, Colorado, Kelly
is trying to figure out a
way to afford the simpler life she’s come to love and remain in her
aunt’s
cottage. After convincing her boss to
let her try telecommuting on a trial basis, Kelly quickly sets up a
routine to
get her daily caffeine and knitting fix.
When Kelly takes a group of
tourists to visit a local alpaca farm, she
finds the owner Vickie splayed out on one of her beautiful hand-woven
rug. It’s up to Kelly to pull together her
friends
at the House of Lambspun and figure out who killed the talented weaver.
A Deadly Yarn- #3
Kelly Flynn
loves being back in Fort Connor,
Colorado and living across from the best
place to get her daily fix of coffee and fibres is a dream come true. Her daily knitting breaks with her friends at
House of Lambspun are quickly becoming a necessity and she’d gladly
spend more
time with them, if only her boss would stop pouring on the work. Kelly suspects he wants her to return to the
office in DC, while she’d rather build up her freelance business,
remain in Colorado, and explore her developing
relationship Steve Townsend.
Allison
Dubois, one of Kelly’s knitting friends and a truly gifted fibre
artist, has
been invited to join an influential fashion designer at her studio in New York.
When Kelly shows up to take Allison to the airport, she
discovers her
friend dead of apparent suicide. Kelly
and the knitting circle at House of Lambspun know that Allison wouldn’t
have
given up this chance to pursue her dream.
As they begin to investigate Allison’s life, they discover
tempestuous
relationships, professional rivalries and conflicting stories.
A Deadly
Yarn is the third
offering by Maggie Sefton in “A Knitting Mystery” series.
As in the previous books in the series, A
Deadly Yarn focuses on one area of the knitting industry, in this
case the
glamorous world of fashion design and textile art.
Sefton deftly integrates Kelly’s developing
knitting skills with her penchant for solving puzzles.
Once again a knitting pattern discussed in
the story, and suitable to Kelly’s level of skill, is included at the
end of
the book, with a recipe for one of the dishes eaten by Kelly and her
friends.
The real
strength of this series is the wonderful cast of characters Sefton has
developed. Her characters have matured
significantly since the first book, Knit One, Kill Two, and
readers of
the series will likely have strong connections to the characters. Readers will likely have their favourites,
this reviewer’s being Carl the golf ball thief (Kelly’s rottweiler), Lizzie
and Hilda von Steuben and Megan Schmidt.
The only
blight readers may find in an otherwise outstanding cozy mystery is the
tentativeness Kelly exhibits in reaching a decision about her future in
Colorado.
While this quibbling may fit the plot outline, it seems at odds
with the
straightforward nature she normally exhibits.
Maggie
Sefton has delivered the fourth book in this series to her publisher
and is
hard at work on the fifth Kelly Flynn mystery.
Sefton is also the author of Dying to Sell: a Real Estate
mystery.
Author
Blog: The Cozy Chicks