Sewing Studio #3
Shear Terror is the third book in Dorothy Howell’s Sewing Studio Mystery series. Abbey Chandler is our protagonist, and she lives with her Aunt Sarah in Hideaway Grove, California. She organizes and heads a charity effort to make pillow dresses for girls in Africa, and plenty of people in town enjoy attending the events. In addition, she has taken up teaching herself how to sew and is currently trying to grow a business creating embroidered handbags. Unfortunately, making ends meet is a little difficult, and she has taken up a job at the local Visitor Center. Currently they are getting ready for the annual Lost and Found Day, which requires employees to sort through all the lost and found items turned into the Visitor Center for the past year to resale at extremely discounted prices.
However, she discovers Eleanor Franklin dead in the storage room, a pair of shears the clear cause of death, and to make matters worse, they are engraved with Abbey’s name. Needless to say the local deputy Owen Humphrey is pretty sure this is an open and shut case, with Abbey as the culprit. Deputy Zack McKenna was someone Abbey thought of as on her side, but he is having a hard time really denying that she could have done it. As her local love interest, that stings a lot. Luckily, all of the evidence is nothing but circumstantial so they cannot arrest her on the spot. Seeing that the local authorities aren’t going to look terribly hard for a suspect beyond her, Abbey decides to investigate herself, hoping that if she can produce some credible suspects for the authorities, they might become motivated to dig a little deeper. Things start off slow, as it appears Eleanor was someone beyond reproach, always fighting for what was right and encouraging those around her to do so as well. But once Abbey starts really digging, she finds that things aren’t all they appear. Eleanor’s pushing for the betterment of the community could be a bit too pushy. Her interest in helping the community was also seen as unwanted nosiness by some, but figuring out who just had sour grapes and who might have been pushed to murder is no easy task.
On top of the murder investigation, the Visitor Center is facing pressure to get the murder solved quickly so that they don’t lose any tourism events. The town depends upon tourism to flourish and if they lose any of the big events on their schedule the town could take a financial hit, causing people to leave town in order to find a place they can afford to survive. Not helping things are the sudden rent hikes going on around town. Abbey also discovers that one of the quieter epidemics in town is the theft of items from local stores. How this all ties together proves to be a daunting challenge, but Abbey is determined to stitch it all together so life can return to normal.
Shear Terror is my first sewing studio mystery and I had no problems at all picking up on the cast, their relationships, and the feel of the town. Longtime readers of Dorothy Howell will enjoy this newest addition. Abbey is a very pragmatic heroine who isn’t’ afraid to speak up when she thinks she has been wronged and is willing to go the extra mile to help her friends. Trying to save herself is a big motivator, rightly so, but she is also concerned for her community with a killer on the loose. Trying to teach yourself how to sew is hard enough, adding to it the stress of trying to get a tote bag business off the ground while working a day job to pay bills is a lot for anyone. Abbey does her best to balance all these aspects of her life, but Dorothy Howell does an excellent job of showing how difficult it can be to try and restart your life. It isn’t a simple task, and it often comes with a lot of financial hurdles. I appreciate the realism Dorothy Howell portrays there. Shear Terror will keep readers engaged with the mystery, Abbey’s life, town life, and the antics of Cheddar all the way to its conclusion. – Carla Schantz