Review

For fans of: Melissa Bourbon, Sally Goldenbaum, Elizabeth Lynn Casey

The tiny town of Blue Plum, Tennessee is going all out for this year's annual heritage festival. Kath Rutledge is hopeful the event will increase foot traffic at her fiber and fabric shop, the Weaver’s Cat, and at the outset, she seems poised to turn a tidy profit. Then, however, a historical reenactment goes awry, a bystander named Reva Louise is killed, and the celebration and tourist trade both grind to a halt. To make matters worse, it turns out the fatal shot was fired from a window in Kath's shop, rendering it a crime scene and forcing her to shutter the place while the police conduct their investigation.

Who shot Reva Louise? Nobody's coming forward, and what's more, none of the reenactors had permission to be in the Weaver's Cat, which begs the question:  was it truly an accident? Can Kath and company unravel the mystery surrounding the woman’s death before the Weaver’s Cat goes belly-up?

If you're a fan of skillfully written, character-driven whodunits, you've met your match in Molly MacRae's Spinning in Her Grave. This third installment in MacRae’s Haunted Yarn Shop Mystery Series is, quite simply, a joy to read from cover to cover. MacRae's mystery is engaging, her prose is sharp, and her story contains just enough humor to keep the pace brisk and the mood light without ever slipping into farce.

Kath's a marvelous protagonist; intelligent and mature with a dry sense of humor, she’s at once compassionate, sentimental, and as practical as can be. Geneva, the petulant ghost that only Kath and her cat Argyle can see, is an enthusiastic (if somewhat unreliable) sidekick and makes for splendid comic relief. Kath's relationship with the oafish Deputy Dunbar strikes just the right note – antagonistic, but not too, without a hint of romance to be found (well, if you ask Kath, at any rate). The members of the fiber arts group of which Kath is a part round out the cast nicely, from half-blind septuagenarian Ernestine, to cantankerous chef Mel, to fisherman and potential love interest Joe. And while I know nothing about fibers or fabrics, the Weaver’s Cat is a place I’d happily while away a sunny afternoon.

Thanks to MacRae’s evocative descriptions, the town of Blue Plum and its residents come to life on the page; both are so well drawn and fully realized I wouldn’t be surprised to happen across either in the wild. Add in MacRae’s snappy dialogue and some wonderfully nuanced interpersonal relationships and you have a tale that is truly something special.

Reviewed by Kat