My CBR 13 cozy crime (reading) spree continues with Sadie Hartwell’s Yarned and Dangerous, the first book in the Tangled Web Mystery series.
Fashion designer Josie Blair temporarily relocates from Brooklyn to Dorset Falls, Connecticut, to care for her great uncle Eb who is recovering from a fatal car crash that killed his wife Cora. Dorset Falls was Josie’s high school home, but it was never her scene, and the reader is introduced to the tiny town through her now-urban eyes:
No Starbucks. No nail salon. No department store.
While that might sound pleasantly pastoral to some, to Josie, it’s a nightmare. Plus, her provisional home in this seemingly spiritless village is a small working farm — Josie’s designer frocks weren’t made for mud or chicken care, thankyouverymuch — and her charge is a surly old crank with a snarling dog. Understandably, Josie is counting the days until her mom relieves her from this familial obligation and she can return home to New York.
But the best laid plans of mice and main characters often go awry, and Josie’s plans start awry-ing the minute she discovers a dead body in Aunt Cora’s yarn shop.
From there, the book follows a quintessential cozy crime pattern*: Josie solves the murder with the help of her new friends and along the way discovers that sleepy Dorset Falls is actually quite charming, knitting is neat, and there’s more to life than New York food and fashion.
While Yarned and Dangerous didn’t tick every box in my personal perfectly cozy checklist, it’s a quick, pleasant read, and exactly what I was looking for to distract me from *waves hands at everything*. It’s a promising start to a new series, so I was disappointed to find that the series seemingly stops after book 2, which was published in 2017. Hopefully Ms. Hartwell is still writing, so I can continue to follow the delightfully distracting antics of Josie and her new knitting life.
Oh, and about that crime scene:
“She was taken away yesterday, and is at the funeral home waiting for her children to get here to make the arrangements. The boxes of yarn she was lying on have also been taken away for analysis.”
“What kind?” Evelyn’s eyes had taken on that glint Josie had seen before. Yarn lust.
“Cashmere,” Officer Coogan and Josie said together.
Evelyn nodded in satisfaction. “Perfect. That’s how I want to go, too.”
If you’ve ever read a cozier crime scene, please let me know in the comments!
*Knitting pun fully intended