"refreshing amateur sleuth"

The Embroiderers Guild of America (EGA) local chapter members feel great that their stitching efforts earned $24,000 for the Heart Coalition charity fund raiser. However, after handing over the check to a man sent by the coalition to the EGA banquet, they since learn he vanished without turning in the money.

Betsy Devonshire, owner of Crewel World, is apartment- bound, after breaking her leg from falling off a horse while riding with friend and customer Jill Cross Larson. The store manager make that Vice President of Operations Godwin still believes she should investigate what happened to the check raised by their clients the EGA, but Betsy insists she is immobile and drugged so cannot follow clues nor think of solutions. Still he makes the case that she can run the case from her home while he follows her orders with the street work. As they work in tandem to learn what happened to the check; Tony Milan laid up also with a broken leg caused by a drunken driver running a light wonders about the same check.

Having Betsy lead a distant investigation makes for a refreshing amateur sleuth as the heroine has to go over every step one stitch at a time. Series fans will enjoy the inquiry as Godwin fumbles to be Betsy's field operative while she is his handler. The missing person mystery is cleverly designed, but it is the Betsy-Godwin sleuthing combo that makes KNITTING BONES a terrific tale.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted November 2, 2007

Summary

Crime solving is a group project in the latest installment of this USA Today bestselling series.

The stitchers of the Embroiderers Guild are thrilled to have raised over $20,000 for charity—but they're less pleased when the representative who accepts the check disappears with it. After breaking her leg in a fall from a horse, Betsy's confined to her apartment and loopy on pain killers—she can't possibly investigate. But Godwin, her store manager, insists that he can do the legwork. Little do they know that a man across town has a similar injury—and he too is wondering what happened to that check. Betsy and Godwin have got to figure it out first, or it'll be a bad break for everyone.