Features The Big Thrill Recommends: A CATERED QUILTING BEE by Isis Crawford

The Big Thrill Recommends: A CATERED QUILTING BEE by Isis Crawford

Recommendation by Susan Santangelo

When sisters Bernie and Libby Simmons, co-owners of A Little Taste of Heaven, are hired by a local quilting club to cater the club’s first-ever quilt exhibit at the local library, it seems like an easy job. The club membership is primarily comprised of elementary school teachers with impeccable credentials, like the well-respected Cecilia Larson, so the sisters accept the job without giving it a second thought.

Before the food for the exhibit is even selected, one of the members of the group, Ellen Fisher, is found dead in a particularly nasty way—hanging from a plant hook in her sewing room. All the evidence points to suicide, but the other quilting group members don’t believe she’d take her own life, especially now. One of her hand-made quilts was going to be featured in a national magazine.

Bernie and Libby have a reputation as amateur crime solvers in their hometown of Longley, NY, and their father, Sean, is the town’s retired police chief. The quilting group members ask the sisters to investigate how Ellen died despite Sean’s attempt to persuade his daughters that this death was clearly suicide. Libby and Bernie can’t resist the opportunity to find out whether Ellen’s death was really a cleverly staged murder.

The body count rises when Ellen, another member of the quilting group, conveniently dies in a car accident on her way to meet the sisters with information about their investigation. Within a few days of that death, a private detective with connections to the quilting group begins following the sisters and then is murdered in his office.

Is one of the remaining quilters really a cold-blooded killer? The sisters are prepared to do everything, including risking their lives, to find the answer.

A CATERED QUILTING BEE is a well-plotted, page-turning, cozy mystery with a loveable cast of characters and a slam-bang ending. Lots of fun and delicious recipes, too.

A CATERED QUILTING BEE by Isis Crawford