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AMATEUR SLEUTH/COZY/
CRAFTS/HOBBIES/ROMANTIC/
SMALL TOWN MYSTERY
spin a wicked web
Things are getting serious between Sophie Mae and Detective Barr Ambrose. But Sophie Mae has a new love in her life: spinning. Pursuing her newfound passion is great fun ... until her fellow co-op member, Ariel, is found strangled to death with Sophie Mae's very first skein of yarn.
 
Young and pretty, Ariel used her feminine charms and sexual magnetism to lure married men. Was the murder victim truly a gold digger in hot pants? Or just a troubled girl who met a bad end? With a tangled weave of suspects to wade through and Barr's ex turning up, it's all Sophie Mae can do to unravel this tightly knitted mystery -- without coming undone herself!
Read a Review:

Soapmaker Sophie Mae Reynolds and police detective Barr Ambrose are back in their third enjoyable adventure in small-town Washington State. Sophie has become involved in the Cadyville Regional Arts Co-op (CRAC), where she is learning how to spin wool from one of the other crafters. Then a fellow member of the co-op is strangled—using Sophie's first skein of yarn. To make things worse, Barr wants to have a "talk." While the first two mysteries in this series involved crimes that looked like accidents, this time it is a straightforward murder, and it looks like the killer is going to get away with it. Ultimately, of course, Sophie and Barr sort it all out, and along the way, we learn more about fibers, weaving, and soap lore, and we are entertained by McRae's clever analogies linking weaving yarn and unraveling the clues that will unmask the murderer. The wide variety of interesting hobbies represented among the co-op members leaves the door open for Sophie Mae to explore additional crafts and more lovably eccentric small-town characters in her future outings.

Judy Coon -- Booklist