Patterns in the Sand by Sally Goldenbaum

Book 2 of the Seaside Knitters Mystery. This has quickly become one of my favorite "cozy murder" series. I confess I am not a big fan of real-to-life tense mysteries.  I use to read mysteries that were very realistic and chilling.  Then one day I read one about a young college couple who were murdered. It hit so close to home as a friend's son and girlfriend had been murdered while in college. The murder in the book was very similar and it just totally bothered me. That was the last of realistic mysteries for me. I later found out that the writer took her plot lines from actual cases and this book was based on the friend's son's murder. No wonder it seemed so real to me!

So I now stick with safe mysteries that grab the readers attention and provide mental exercise in whodunit, but don't bring on nightmares or deep fright.  Goldenbaum's Seaside Knitters series fits the bill!  Book 2 brings the introduction of a new character.... Willow Adams... and she is a character!  A wispy little elf of a girl, Willow is found in the front window of Izzy Chambers Seaside Knitting Studio asleep! Curled up among skeins of soft wool, silk and mohair yarns along with Izzy's cat, Purl.  Despite her strange introduction to Sea Harbor, Massachusetts, Willow is immediately accepted and loved.

As Art at Night, a summer event held in Sea Harbor's Canary Cove art colony, burst into full festive array, a local gallery owner and artist is found dead.  The Seaside Knitters are sure someone close at hand is to blame and discuss at great length who had motive and opportunity.  When the will is produced and the name of Peabody's sole heir revealed, the plot thickens (as they say!) and the Seaside Knitters are thrown for a complete loop as one of their own becomes the prime suspect.

Quick as a flash they start detecting and deducing and snooping to learn the truth and set all right again in their bit of paradise.