Knot What You Think–piecing together a mystery and a quilt

Knot What You Think

by Mary Marks

Martha Rose takes center stage in the cozy mystery Knot What You Think by Mary Marks. Martha has been quilting with a small group of friends in L.A. every Tuesday for seventeen years. They also form her support group as she investigates mysteries that come her way. She is an observant Jew, and so there are a lot of Yiddish phrases that spice up the writing with meanings inserted in a non-intrusive way. There are two love interests: Arlo Beaver, the straight shooting LAPD homicide detective and “Crusher,” a secret ops/undercover ATF agent.

This cozy mystery swirls with personal threads—weddings, funerals, ex’s, health issues, quilting, swindles, and dogs in fancy dress. Usually that would be too much distraction for me from the main point of the book: discovering the identity of a murderer. Surprisingly, Mary Marks is able to put it all together and make it work. The side issues are, in fact, important to Martha’s process of investigation. In spite of the fact that I was reading it during some traveling, I always enjoyed coming back to it until the mystery was solved.

There were interesting notes about quilting scattered through the story. The book ended with an epilogue that tied up some of the personal stories with promise of more to come.

I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Kensington Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 5/5

Category: Mystery

Notes: #5 in the Quilting Mystery Series and good enough as a standalone to make me want to read more in the series.

Publication:   July 25, 2017—Kensington Books

Memorable Lines:

I found endless fascination in the geometry of traditional quilts. Depending on how you placed quilt blocks next to each other in the top, secondary overall patterns could emerge.

Besides, even if I did want to get married, whose proposal should I accept? A generous, laid-back undercover ATF agent with a secret life and Israeli connections he refused to discuss or an upright, uptight LAPD detective with Native American roots, whose life was an open book? A future filled with anxiety and uncertainty or one that was reliable and predictable but not as exciting? A three-carat flawless diamond sitting in a black fuzzy box or my favorite German shepherd?

I was less interested in the hapless Kaplan and more interested in reading the whole three-volume story passing over Beavers’s face.