Embroidery shop owner Marcy Singer gets hung up on a tapestry that may lead to sunken treasure and be the motive for murder....

When Marcy’s friend Reggie, Tallulah Falls’ local librarian, asks her to teach an embroidery class as therapy for domestic abuse victims, she gladly agrees. One of the women wants to flee from her abusive husband but is afraid to leave her elderly father-in-law behind. And she thinks Marcy can help.

The elderly gentleman shows Marcy a tapestry his grandmother made, which he believes reveals the location of pirate treasure off the Oregon coast. He’ll move to a shelter—provided Marcy takes the tapestry to keep it safe. But when the police arrive the next day to escort him out, they find the old man murdered and the house ransacked. Does someone want that treasured tapestry desperately enough to kill for it?

Review

For fans of:  Maggie Sefton

When Marcy Singer agrees to teach an embroidery class for battered women, she swears to herself that she won’t get caught up in her students’ problems; their abusers are dangerous, and it’s in everyone’s best interest if she just keeps her head down and focuses on what she knows best:  needlework.  But then she meets Mary and Melanie Cantor, and she can’t help but become invested in their plight.  Adam Cantor frequently loses his temper, and he’s been known to become violent with not only Mary and Melanie, but his elderly father Chester, as well.  Mary desperately wants take Melanie and leave Adam, but she refuses to abandon Chester, and Chester intends to stay put. 

Chester is convinced that things would be better if Mary and Adam weren’t under such financial strain, and he knows just the thing to replenish the family’s coffers.  It seems Chester has in possession an old tapestry he believes to be a treasure map – he just needs someone to authenticate it and then assist him with his search.  Marcy agrees to take a look – at the very least, maybe she can disabuse Chester of his fantasy – but before she can do much of anything with the tapestry, Chester is murdered.  Did Adam suspect his family was planning to leave him and snap? Or is somebody else determined to beat the Cantors to the treasure? Either way, Marcy feels responsible and is determined to atone for her sins by catching Chester’s killer and putting him or her behind bars.

Thread on Arrival is the fifth of Amanda Lee’s Embroidery Mysteries, and it’s a relatively entertaining (if somewhat bland) addition to the series.  The setup is clever – who doesn’t want to read about a treasure hunt? – and I like the tension and menace that Adam (and the threat of Adam) adds to every scene in which he and/or his family appears, but I feel like Lee should have done more to capitalize on both of these elements.  Instead of building in clues, fleshing out suspects, and increasing the stakes, she spends countless pages giving detailed descriptions of characters’ outfits and living spaces.  This superfluous information slows the pace, disrupts the flow of the story, and saps the book of its narrative drive.  And because she doesn’t put enough work into developing the mystery, the solution feels both telegraphed and just a little too pat, and the book’s big climax is – well, kind of anticlimactic.

Marcy is likable heroine – smart, courageous, stubborn, and loyal to a fault.  And the series regulars – librarian Reggie, café owners Blake and Sadie, brew pub proprietor Todd, etc. – all make memorable appearances here, as well. But while I appreciate the effort Lee puts into her character development, I don’t think it should take precedence over plot, and Lee dedicates way too many scenes to the burgeoning romance between Marcy and her new boyfriend Ted.  I’m glad Lee finally forced Marcy to decide between her two suitors (if only because I could never tell the two men apart before now), and it’s certainly a plot point worth addressing, but this is a mystery, not a romance novel, and Lee would do well to remember that. 

Reviewed by Kat

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