A Twisted Skein by Sally Goldenbaum

A Twisted Skein
by Sally Goldenbaum

ISBN-13: 9781496729439
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Kensington Books
Released: Nov. 28, 2023

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Izzy Perry’s Sea Harbor Yarn Studio is heating up, thanks to an upcoming fashion benefit. The show will feature hand-knit garments, and enthusiastic knitters flock to the shop for supplies to create runway-worthy pieces. Yet Seaside Knitter Birdie is enjoying flocks of a different kind, thanks to a rekindled interest in birdwatching, a hobby she enjoyed with her late husband. Along with a small group of passionate birders, she often spends weekend mornings looking for warblers, or keeping watch for gannets and grebes. It’s a lovely, special time—until Birdie stumbles upon a fellow birder’s body.

At first, it appears to be an accidental fall, but an autopsy soon reveals that the victim died before hitting a granite boulder. When police discover a clue linking the victim to one of the Seaside Knitters, the web of suspicion grows. Before the knitters have cast off the final rows on their runway projects, they’ll have to unravel secrets and ties strong enough to bind friends and neighbors together.


My Review:
A Twisted Skein is supposedly a cozy mystery. At least in the Advanced Reader Copy, the mystery was never fully explained. It's the 17th novel in a series, but you can understand this story without reading the previous books.

There was so much that was never explained, like how the victim died. We're simply told that he was murdered. Near the end, they finally started asking people relevant questions, like who knew about the secret place where the murder happened and who might have known or guessed the victim would be there. But anything important that they learned wasn't told to the reader so that everyone in the story knew whodunit while the reader was left in the dark until after the arrest was made. And we never learn some of the 'hidden from the reader' things like the name of the mysterious hiker, which shocked our detectives.

Whodunit confessed to motive in general terms, but we never learned details about how (especially how someone could murder a healthy, relatively young man when whodunit must have made noise getting to the secret spot). So many details were glossed over, like how someone could so easily commit a series of financial crimes or what happened to the kid who was arrested.

Much of the story was knitting filler and about how the murder impacted the community. Though why people were terrified about possibly being the next victim baffles me since everyone knew it was a targeted killing, not a random one. The main characters got to know every detail about the victim's life, finding many people with possible motives. Then they simply dismissed many of them because they didn't feel like this person was lying and that person would have known they'd be a suspect, so of course they wouldn't do it. Hmm.

There was no sex or bad language. I'd recommend this book to fans of the characters--what's next in their lives?--but not mystery lovers.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.