The Herringbone Harbor Mystery by Sally Goldenbaum

The Herringbone Harbor Mystery
by Sally Goldenbaum

ISBN-13: 9781496747181
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Kensington
Released: November 26, 2024

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
The Yarn Studio’s Seaside Knitters have their hands full creating a single blanket together. Birdie’s teenage granddaughter is also visiting for the season and has started a dog-walking business with her friend, Daisy. Meanwhile, the Lazy Lobster and Soup Café’s local fare is gaining newfound attention with the addition of a well-known chef.

Then Birdie spots a huge blaze from her balcony one evening, frighteningly close to knitter Cass’s lobster business. But the morning brings news that it was a house in Fishermen’s Village, and a popular businessman, and mayoral candidate, is found dead inside. As suspicion rocks usually placid Sea Harbor, knitters Izzy, Birdie, Cass, and Nell must pick apart tangled secrets.


My Review:
The Herringbone Harbor Mystery is a cozy mystery, though the mystery was never fully explained. It's the 18th novel in a series, but you can understand this story without reading the previous books.

So much of the story was the sleuths spotting clues but feeling too overwhelmed by the murder to think things through, so they ate or knitted instead. They also spent a lot of time sorrowfully saying how dealing with various bad events was just so 'heavy' and difficult to handle emotionally.

There were several mysteries to solve, and there were plenty of clues for those who like to solve the puzzle, though some critical clues were withheld from the reader at the very end. Still, I had most of it figured out long before the end. However, while the murderer confessed, the person didn't explain everything and frankly I didn't believe some of what whodunit did say. Worse, the guy who was killed was a wonderful person, but we're clearly supposed to feel sorry for whodunit, too!

I read an Advanced Reader Copy so this may be fixed in the final copy, but the grammar was bad. It was hard to keep track of who "her" referred to, for example, and sometimes the wrong name was used. This made the reading confusing and required stopping to figure out what the author was trying to say.

There was no sex. There were only a few uses of bad language. Fans of the characters might still like the book, but I no longer feel like this author writes what I look for in cozy mysteries.