I have always loved needle arts. I was only seven when I embroidered a lemon on a dish towel using a running stitch. You definitely would have been able to tell it had been done by a seven-year-old, but I was oh, so proud of it. As I got older and more adept, I improved my embroidery skills and added cross-stitching, needlepoint, crocheting, knitting, the making of hairpin lace, garment construction, and quilting to my repetoire. I learned some of these skills out of necessity. My mother, my sister, and I were small people living in a small town, and the few local dress shops usually did not carry clothes small enough to fit us. We made the clothes we wore. I learned some of the skills out of pure pleasure. Taking pretty colored threads and using them to create a lovely picture or decorate a piece of clothing satisfied the artist in me.
I also always have loved to read and have been lucky enough in my latter years to find within the cozy mystery sub-genre of fiction several series that combine a love of the needle arts with an ability by the main character to solve crimes. Such is the book I have just finished, Thai Die by Monica Ferris, the twelfth book in her Needlecraft Mystery Series. The amateur sleuth in these books is Betsy Devonshire, an older woman who came to the small town of Excelsior, Minnesota, to bury her sister, stayed to solve her sister's murder, and then continued on as the heir to and new owner of her sister's needlecraft shop, named, with pun intended, Crewel World. The books in the series feature a core group of characters, mainly the regular employees and customers of Betsy's shop. Each book has on its last few pages a needlework pattern, with instructions, of some piece talked about in the book.
In Thai Die, Ms. Ferris adds to our store of knowledge by acquainting us with Giant Angora Rabbits, whose fur can be gently tugged from their skins while they sit in a spinner's lap, the spinner immediately adding the fur to that being spun on a spinning wheel. The mystery in this particular novel has at its center a piece of needlework known as The Thai Silk, and Ms. Ferris tells us the myth behind the beginning of silk production and relates some of the factual history. We learn a little bit about the discovery of ancient artifacts in China. We also learn more about an automobile owned by Betsy's friends, Jill and Lars Larsen, a 1911 Stanley Steamer that sometimes figures prominently in these books.
Being able to exercise my brain trying to decide "who done it" while learning new bits of knowledge and reading about men and women who enjoy some of the same activities that I do definitely places this book in my Good Read category. A number of the books in this series are available at the Faulkner County Library. If you would like to know more about Monica Ferris and her books, you can check out her page on the Fantastic Fiction web site:
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/f/monica-ferris/
or her official web page:
Until next time, happy rummaging.
