Most days I wake up when the sun brightens the white eyelet curtains at my bedroom windows—that is, if Catrina, the stray cat I recently adopted, hasn’t already begun clamoring for her breakfast. My work-at-home job as associate editor of Fiber Craft magazine usually allows me the luxury of dawdling over coffee and the newspaper, but today will be busier than most. It’s Tuesday and tonight I’m hosting the Arborville knitting club. We call ourselves Knit and Nibble—and the nibbles are important. In between tidying my house—way too big for me now that my daughter Penny is away at college—and keeping up with assignments for my job, I’ll be baking something yummy to serve with coffee and tea. I’ll serve it on my wedding china.

Fortunately I won’t have to fetch the ingredients for my recipe. I stopped at the Co-Op Market on my daily walk yesterday. One of the things I love about Arborville, New Jersey, is its walkability. The commercial district, what there is of it, is only five blocks from the leafy street where I live in my hundred-year-old house filled with thrift-shop treasures. When my late husband and I were house-hunting twenty years ago, we settled in Arborville because it reminded us of the college town where we met and fell in love.

You’d think serious crime would be unknown in such a small, pleasant town, but shockingly the town has had some frightful murders, and the police, being small-town police, don’t seem to have the skills to solve them. I’ve been quite surprised to discover that common sense and observation can go quite far in unraveling very complicated cases—though Penny becomes very alarmed when she suspects her mother is meddling with things better left to the police.

Membership in Knit and Nibble has varied in the time we’ve been together, but the stalwarts are Karen Dowling, Nell Bascomb, Roland DeCamp, Bettina Fraser—and me. I’m Pamela Paterson, the club’s founder. Karen is a sweet young woman, newly married. She and her husband are restoring an old house in Arborville, just as my husband and I did so long ago. Nell is a lively soul in her eighties, very community-oriented, and devoted to her do-good projects, like knitting stuffed elephant toys for the children at the women’s shelter in neighboring Haversack. Roland is a buttoned-up corporate lawyer who learned to knit on the advice of his doctor. His wife believes the hobby has calmed him down considerably, but his blood pressure still rises when he gets started on the many ways he believes the town fathers of Arborville waste the money he pays in taxes. As you can imagine, he and Nell have some spirited discussions.

Bettina lives right across the street from me, in a charming house that’s even older than mine, and she’s my best friend as well as a fellow knitter. She’s also my partner in (solving) crime. We’re an unlikely pair. I’m tall and thin and totally uninterested in clothes, and Bettina—who isn’t tall or thin—dresses for her life in Arborville with the enthusiasm of a committed fashionista. She’s the chief reporter for the Arborville Advocate, the town weekly, described by its readers as covering “all the news that fits.” Bettina’s professional relationship with Detective Clayborn of the Arborville police is very useful when we’re working on a case, though I have to say I think we help him more than he helps us. The only time I get mad at Bettina is when she tries to match me up with the handsome unattached architect who recently moved into the house next to mine. She’s convinced he’s interested in me, but he’s so shy that it’s hard to tell. When he’s around me, he becomes positively tongue-tied—and anyway, even though my husband has been gone for five years, I’m not sure I’m ready to fall in love again.

So that’s my life, pretty much. I must go now—I have baking to do.

You can read more about Pamela in Murder, She Knit, the first book in the NEW “Knit and Nibble” mystery series.

Since her only daughter left for college, widow Pamela Paterson has kept busy as associate editor of a craft magazine and founder of the Knit and Nibble knitting club in quaint Arborville, New Jersey. Now, she’s trying out a new hobby—solving murders!

Pamela is hosting the next Knit and Nibble meeting and can’t wait to liven up her otherwise empty home with colorful yarn, baking, and a little harmless gossip. She even recruits Amy Morgan, an old friend who recently moved to town, as the group’s newest member. But on the night of the gathering, Amy doesn’t show. Not until Pamela finds her dead outside—a knitting needle stabbed through the front of her handmade sweater.

Someone committed murder before taking off with Amy’s knitting bag, and Pamela realizes that only she can spot the deadly details hidden in mysterious skeins. But when another murder occurs, naming the culprit—and living to spin the tale—will be more difficult than Pamela ever imagined. . .

Knitting tips and delicious recipe included!

Purchase Link

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Meet the author
Peggy Ehrhart is a former English professor with a doctorate in Medieval Literature, currently writing the Knit and Nibble mystery series for Kensington. Set in fictional Arborville, New Jersey, the series features amateur sleuth Pamela Paterson, founder of the town’s knitting club. Murder, She Knit appeared in late March. Died in the Wool is due out August 2018. A third book is in the works. Peggy is an avid crafter, dating from her childhood as a member of the 4-H Club in rural Southern California. Visit her at www.PeggyEhrhart.com.

All comments are welcomed.