Quilty As Charged by Maggie Bailey
Quilty As Charged is the second in this delightful Measure Twice Sewing Mystery series by Maggie Bailey.
The setting: the picturesque town of Peridot, Georgia. Lydia Barnes is the new owner of Measure Twice fabric store. Like a lot of new business owners, she’s in the “red.” But she comes up with a game-changing idea (or so she thinks) to help get her store back into the “black:” a three-day sewing retreat. And she knows the perfect host and ideal place to hold it.
Her friend, Fran, has a spacious and beautiful mountain home tucked away in the woods. Fran also happens to be the former owner of Measure Twice until she decided it was time to retire and sold it to Lydia. They’ve remained good friends and soon Lydia finds herself running the sewing retreat with Fran being the host.
Eight of them altogether plus the caretaker. And it’s quite a varied group. Martha and Mary are BFF’s in their 70’s. They run the local church charity shop. On the opposite end is Heather, a young 25 year-old social media influencer. She’s brought along her very reserved friend, Amy. Cynde is a court stenographer in her 50’s. Clark owns an organic upscale food store in town.
When a severe ice storm approaches it hits Fran’s mountain home and the surrounding area hard. But not as hard as murder! Trapped with power lines being down and no cells phones to contact the outside world, Lydia can’t imagine who would want to murder someone in this cozy sewing group.
But even more intimidating is the fact that “one of them” is probably the killer. No signs of anyone hiding on the premises, no signs of anyone outside.
As Lydia does some secret sleuthing into the retreat attendees, she’s starting to make some questionable observations – observations that don’t necessarily scream “killer” – but red flags none the less. Could one of them have been involved in blackmail? Could one of the two seemingly innocent 70 year-old seniors possibly be a cold-blooded killer? And what about the last minute attendee who signed up for a sewing retreat but didn’t know the first thing about sewing?
Lydia is the first to realize a stitch in time saves nine – and she’s got no time to waste to sew up this crime before the killer strikes again.
Quilty as Charged by Maggie Bailey IS what cozy fans “want” – solid and interesting characters, a twisty whodunit and a charming setting. It’s a small pool of suspects, but fans will enjoy diving right in to bring the motive to the surface and nail down the killer!
A copy of this book and cover photo were provided by: Crooked Lane Publishing.