Monday Cozy Mystery

 

Murder in Patchwork: A cozy quilt mystery (The Patchwork House Mysteries Book 1)

Murder in Patchwork — The Patchwork House Mysteries, Book 1

When Nora Whitfield returns to the English village of Ashcombe after nearly twenty years away, she expects to find fabric, familiar faces, and the particular low-level social warfare of a place that never quite forgets anything. What she doesn't expect is a mystery stitched into a hundred-year-old quilt.

Commissioned to examine a patchwork quilt discovered in the attic of Elmwood Hall, textile conservator Nora finds herself reading more than fabric — she's reading a family secret buried for sixty years. When the woman who first found the quilt turns up dead at the bottom of a manor house staircase, the inquest calls it an accident. Nora isn't so sure.

With her best friend Priya supplying tea, intelligence, and lemon drizzle cake, the formidable Margaret Fanshawe guarding the village's oldest secrets, and heritage carpenter Tom Calloway noticing rather more than he lets on, Nora begins piecing together a story of hidden inheritance, long-kept silence, and a killer hiding in plain sight behind the most respectable of faces.

Cosy, clever, and deeply English, Murder in Patchwork is the first book in The Patchwork House Mysteries — a series set in the kind of village where everyone knows everyone, remembers everything, and still talks around the truth.

Perfect for fans of Richard Osman, Alexander McCall Smith, and M.C. Beaton.

Book Review

Murder in Patchwork is a well written and well crafter mystery. Nora, a published fiber professional with advanced degrees, returns to her hometown to visit her grandmother in her fabric store. Before she even completely unpacked she is asked to analyze and examine a vintage quilt that was found in the attic of the town Manor house. As Nora works she realizes the quilt is telling a story. To complete her work, she will have to figure out what that story is. Very enjoyable, quick read.