Best last line ever. ( )

In the second book in the Betsy Devonshire Needlecraft Mysteries, Betsy is drawn into another investigation when a skeleton is found on an old ferry boat dredged from the lake. One of her new friends is implicated as the skeleton was accompanied by a piece of lace that is extremely difficult to make. Indeed, so difficult that Betsy's friend is one of the few people left who know how to make it. As a reader, I appreciated that the author has obviously done her research well enough to impart some techniques and history of this almost-lost art.
Betsy and her friends are wonderful characters, and very genuinely believable as residents of Excelsior, MN, a town with which I am quite familiar. I can't wait to read more about them. ( )

I liked the first book in the series, and I liked this one too. One of the things I really like about it is the setting in a needlecraft shop, and there is a lot of talk about crafting. I really enjoyed learning about bobbin lace in this one. I thought it was fascinating. The cozy mystery aspect of this series is similar to a lot of other books in the genre. What sets it apart for me is the setting. I plan on reading all of the books in this series. ( )

Synopsis: The entire town is excited to see the raising of an historic boat, but the excitement quickly turns to horror when a skeleton is found. Betsy gets involved when one of the Monday Bunch is accused of the 50 year-old murder because of a piece of lace that is found near the body. This is further complicated when the woman's husband, who had disappeared years ago, returns and is subsequently shot.
Review: This is a cozy mystery, written in a nice style. The mystery was sufficiently complicated to make it interesting. I didn't know 'who done it' until the last 30 pages. ( )

Cozy mysteries are one of the first kinds of books I really dove into once the reading bug had finally bitten me as a teenager. Part of that is from borrowing my mother's books and part of it is growing up watching police procedural series with my grandfather. I was a steady consumer of the genre until my early thirties.

And then the time I spent reading them for fun was taken up by bedtime stories, reading books I'd borrowed from friends or acquired through BookCrossing, and ARCs. What free time I did have for reading, I didn't want to commit to a series of any sort.

In the midst of all that "assigned" reading, one of the BookCrossing books was Crewel World, the first in the Needlecraft series by Monica Ferris. I enjoyed it, released it, and went back to my piles and piles of books.

I'm done with all of those obligations (save for the occasional bedtime story) and can focus again on my own reading tastes and schedules. The first cozy I chose to revisit the genre was Framed in Lace by Monica Ferris.

Still reeling from her sister's murder, Betsy has decided to stick around Excelsior and keep the needlecraft store open. She has her staff and a small group of friends willing to help her learn the store.

Meanwhile, the local historical society is pulling a sunken ferry out of the lake to restore it, just as they'd done with another ferry sunk at the end of WWII. This one though surfaces with a skeleton. The only clue to the skeleton's ID is a scrap of lace.

Since Betsy runs the local needlecraft store, she's brought on as the resident expert. Of course, she's not, but she does know how to ask questions and how to find someone who is an expert.

This book worked a lot better for me than Crewel World. Betsy's now established as a character and her fish-out-water status doesn't need rehashing. Also, this mystery relies on two things I know first: local knowledge through canvassing, and the ease at which a typo can be propagated across records to the point of being taken as irrefutable fact. ( )