Penny is home on Christmas break. During a walk in a nature preserve, she stumbles on a body. It turns out to be the owner of a craft store, and well-known among locals. Of course, Pamela, her mom, gets involved in looking for the killer. There is a lot of holiday flavor in this tale, with especially descriptive passages about food and clothes. The kittens are still having fun and causing havoc, and Pam gets pretty creative in her method to smoke out the culprit. It’s a cute cozy, just what readers of the series have come to expect. ( )

Another great book by Ms. Ehrhart. ( )

Pamela Paterson is getting ready for Christmas with her daughter Penny, who is home from college for the holidays. But things aren't very merry when she receives a frantic phone call -- Penny has found the body of a local craft store owner in a nature preserve where she was sketching.

When Pamela and her best friend Bettina, who is a reporter for the weekly newspaper The Advocate, get involved, they know there's a killer out there and they're determined to find out who it is. But just questioning people isn't going anywhere, and the dead woman's husband might have a motive but he also has an alibi. Now they have a couple of others to focus on, but they haven't ruled him out.

They're also trying to get ready for Christmas, with wrapping last-minute gifts and planning parties, and Pamela has been cooking up a storm. When one of the suspects suddenly turns up closer than Pamela would like, she's on the hunt to figure it out. But will she be able to do it before the holidays are over?

This is the fourth book in the series, and I honestly don't know why I'm continuing on with it. I guess because I bought the books, I tell myself I should finish them.

The main problem with the books is the fact that people are rarely knitting. They're always eating. And we get long, detailed descriptions of what they're eating. Over and over. We know that Pamela loves whole-grain bread, because she tells us every time she has a slice. We also know she drinks tons of coffee. There were over four pages detailing every step of making the poppy seed cake. Why? Why are we told in every single book about Pamela's wedding china? About Bettina's sage green dishes? Do we really care? Who does that? We're told about Bettina's pumpkin-colored coat numerous times. It's as if the author needed a heavy word count. The result? Very little time was spent on the mystery.

To top it off, there were no clues apparent to us on who the murderer might be, until after they were discovered and Pamela explained it -- and we wouldn't have figured it out anyway! Not with that one clue. Why didn't the police get closer to the killer? They never do, and they're inept in these books. There is no detective presence at all, just Bettina relaying messages.

In the end, this book gave us exactly what all the other books have done: unanswered questions as to what happened to various characters. It's as annoying as Nell, who disapproves of anyone eating anything that isn't healthy. (None of her business, and she shouldn't spout it off to people). What others eat isn't anyone's business but their own. (No, I don't want to see people gorge themselves, but not my circus, not my monkeys).

I know this sounds like a rant, but I wish there were more murder clues and less descriptions of food and dinnerware. Saying that, when the killer was discovered, it came as a surprise, because...there were no clues. Ah, well. I guess I'll just go have a cup of coffee, with cream, in my pretty red reindeer mug and have a slice of homemade banana swirl bread on a blue-rimmed plate... ( )

Silent Knit, Deadly Knit by Peggy Ehrhart is the first book in the Knit and Nibble Mystery series that I have read. Although it’s book four, Ehrhart gives enough background information on the characters and previous events that you won’t be lost.

I always hate giving a book less than a four star rating, but sometimes it has to be done. Especially since I write book reviews so people know what they are getting into. But reviews are subjective and what I found to be a problem with this book might be something that others enjoy reading.

There was a lot of filler in this book. I think Ehrhart mentioned how to make coffee at least ten times in this book. The neighbors pumpkin colored coat and Penny’s violet coat and scarf were mentioned almost every time they went outside or came in from outside. Whenever Pamela would pick up something around her house it had to be said if she got it from a tag sale or some other second-hand shop. When they were looking through her friend’s items at the estate sale, a black and white outfit was mentioned twice in the same paragraph… and I think the paragraph was only three sentences long!

If you were to take out all of the descriptions and repetitive household events, the book would be only half as long and I would have been fine with it. I would rather have a short, well-written book than one with a lot of fluff.

I did get a good feel for the characters which always makes for a good cozy. It was not consistent how Pamela treated her 19 year old daughter though. One minute she was letting her drink alcohol and then she needed to know where she was all the time. And the way Pamela and the potential love interest were interacting was very high-schoolish to me, by book four I would think it would have moved along a bit more.

I did really enjoy the mystery reveal though and didn’t see it coming. Plus I really enjoyed the details behind it. Maybe if I had started with book one, Murder, She Knit, and had really gotten to love the characters I would continue reading the series, but there are just so many great cozy mystery series to read that I don’t want to settle for a just okay one. ( )

Penny is home from college for Christmas. She stumbles across the body of Millicent Fairchild, owner of the craft shop in the next town, as she is in the park. Who wants Millicent dead and why?

The Knit and Nibble Knitting Club has another murder to solve. Well, Pamela and Bettina do. The rest are getting ready for Christmas or babies. As they come across clues, they have to be careful of how they say they found those clues. Once again I can say I am no detective. I could not solve this one. I needed the mystery solved for me as well as the why.

It was fun to visit these characters and see Pamela deal with an empty nest and try to treat Penny as an adult. She is all mother hen over some of what happens. I liked seeing more of Bettina's family. Looking forward to more Knit and Nibble. ( )