Knit to kill

Canadeo's fun ninth Black Sheep and Company mystery (after 2015's A Murder in Mohair) takes the ladies of the Plum Harbor, Mass., knitting group to a resort community on Osprey Island, Maine, for a weekend of relaxation before member Lucy Binger's wedding. Amy Cutler, an old friend of Black Sheep knitter Suzanne Cavanaugh, has let the group stay at her family's cottage. Their first night, the ladies have a knitting session at a local mansion, where they encounter Julian Morton, a disagreeable island resident. The next morning, Morton is found dead at the bottom of a cliff. When the police determine that Morton's fatal fall was no accident, Amy's husband becomes a leading suspect. Since, as it turns out, more than one person made threats against the dead man, the knitters, who have solved crimes before, think that a bit of sleuthing is in order. Fortunately if not surprisingly, the ladies are able to identify the killer in time to get home for Lucy's wedding. Agent: Nancy Yost, Nancy Yost Literary. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

A pre-wedding getaway is interrupted by murder.The members of the Black Sheep knitting group are busily preparing for Lucy Binger's nuptials when real estate agent Suzanne Cavanaugh proposes a stress-relieving long weekend at Osprey Shores, a gated community on a coastal Maine island where her college roommate, Amy Cutler, has a spare cottage they can use for free. Knit-shop owner Maggie, her talented young assistant, Phoebe, Lucy, and Dana all pile into Suzanne's SUV and head for Maine. Their first night, as Maggie is giving a knitting class at the refurbished mansion that anchors the community, the group is disturbed by a loud argument from a nearby card room, where Derek Pullman accuses Dr. Julian Morton of cheating. The next morning Phoebe heads for the cliff walk to take pictures of birds while the rest go to the yoga class offered by Meredith Quinn, the ex-wife of Julian Morton, whose current wife, Tanya, also joins the class, which is soon disturbed by loud sirens. They learn that Julian fell over the cliff to his death and that he might have been pushed. Although the group has had sleuthing experience (Till Death Do Us Purl, 2012, etc.), the women prefer to not get involved until Amy's husband becomes a suspect. Julian was a despicable person whose whole life had been littered with nasty incidents and others' suffering. Both his wives hated him. So did the son he recently cut out of his will. He stole a valuable medical discovery from Amy's husband and sold it as his own. As a young man, he'd pushed the brother of another Osprey resident into a campfire. Those are just the people who live nearby; who knows how many others may have hated him enough to kill him? A leisurely investigation into a murder with plenty of time for beautiful scenery, delicious food, and, of course, knitting. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.