Libby Beckett is ready for Christmas. Living in Collinstown, running her Y.A.R.N. shop, and working hard as the president of the Chamber of Commerce, she has planned the holidays for her shop and for the town with detail and panache. There will be a 20 foot Christmas tree, and everyone from town will hand the ornaments to each other down the street to decorate it. Everyone’s decorations are on point. And she even set up a once-in-a-lifetime event for her store.
The Gallant Herdsman, Vincenzo Marani, has brought four vicuña to the shop, and he will be shearing them for an audience. They are graceful animals, and their soft fur is only sheared once every three years, so the yarn that is spun from it is the most luxurious and most expensive in the world. Vincenzo, whose family is known for their fashion house, has turned his charitable efforts into keeping the vicuña safe from extinction and educating people on them. But he is also the epitome of handsome elegance, and Libby can’t stop herself from admiring his gallantry.
Vincenzo has brought four vicuña to Collinstown, and Libby has sold out events for knitters and others to watch him shear the animals. Libby is thrilled that he had chosen her yarn shop over all the others that had applied, but when an old friend from college shows up, Libby has some misgivings about it. She had forgotten that Vincenzo was friends with her ex-husband Sterling. And now Sterling has shown up in town, and Libby is angry.
Sterling had been calling her, trying to adjust their financial arrangement, since her store seems to be doing so well. He had grown up with old money, and he runs the family’s successful pharmaceutical company, so he has the resources. Libby had decided not to bend on their agreement, whether she needed the money or not. It had given her the chance to open her store. And when Sterling tries to talk to her about it, she tells him—actually, yells at him—that she has no intention of changing her mind and that she would be happier if he were out of her life. She can’t deny that. Half of the town heard her yell it to his face, before she realized what she was doing and calmed herself down.
But when Libby is awakened the next morning by the chief of police pounding on her door, she is stunned to find out that Sterling had been murdered. He had been stabbed by the shears Vincenzo had used to shear the first vicuña earlier that evening. Libby’s very public fight with Sterling makes her a prime suspect. The murder weapon makes Vincenzo a prime suspect too. But will Libby and her friends be able to figure out which of Sterling’s many enemies was the one who cut his time short before she’s the one who is arrested for his death?
It Came Upon a Midnight Shear is the third book in Allie Pleiter’s Riverbank Knitting Mystery series. These books knit together compelling characters with small town shenanigans that (despite the sketchy murder rate) make me want to pull up a chair in the yarn shop and crochet until all my problems dissolve. (Sorry, I’m not a knitter, but I feel like I would be accepted in Y.A.R.N. anyway).
I love how Pleiter can blend some humor and light flirting into these murder mysteries. It Came Upon a Midnight Shear is smart and well-plotted, with lots of twists and interesting surprises. The writing is smooth, like a silky yarn, and the pattern slowly comes together as the chapters unravel. The intricate beauty of knitting is a strong metaphor for how Pleiter writes, and I appreciate just how artfully she manages to make her stories. And I loved how she worked in the vicuña, adding texture to the story and helping educate readers about their value, their lifestyle, and their propensity to spit.
Egalleys for It Came Upon a Midnight Clear were provided by Berkley Publishing Group through NetGalley, with many thanks.
