Paislee Shaw wants to give back. She has made a home for herself in Nairn, Scotland, with her son Brody and her grandfather. She has a knitting shop named Cashmere Crush, where she makes a living for herself and her family by selling items she’s knitted and local wool and cashmere yarns.
And when she was asked to be a part of the Nairn Food Bank Fund-Raiser at the newly reopened Social Club and Art Centre, Paislee jumped at the chance. She donated a beautiful cashmere sweater set to the auction, but she also set up several other knitted pieces to sell to those who are coming through the center, donating a portion of her sales to the food bank as well.
She’s sharing a table with her friend Blaise O’Conner, who had recently moved to Nairn. Her husband Shep is a golf pro, and their daughter is going to Highland Academy. Blaise is selling some of her homemade biscuits, which she plans to enter into the cookie competition. But winning will be difficult. Every year at the cookie competition, Kristen Buchanan always wins.
Kristen is the queen bee at Highland Academy. Her husband is also a golfer, so between that and the school, she and Blaise run in the same social circles. And Kristen and her two best friends, Mari and Christina, are like the mean girls in middle school. Blaise is trying to make friends with them, but since she’s not interested in playing the games (and her husband is more successful than Kristen’s), Blaise is having trouble getting close to anyone. But she likes Paislee and Paislee’s best friend Lydia, so she does have some allies in the town.
When it’s time for the competition, Kristen’s chef Fergus brings out the plates of cookies to the judges. Kristen looks at the shortbread cookies that she made and say that they don’t look quite right. She tries it and decides that it tastes okay. But then, a moment later, she starts choking. Immediately, people jump into action. Paislee tries to do CPR and Kristen’s friends try to find her EpiPen, in case she’s having an allergic reaction, but the EpiPen can’t be found. When the paramedics get to the scene, they try to do what they can to stop her allergic reaction, but it’s too late.
The police show up and start questioning everyone, trying to figure out what happened. Eventually they find out that someone had put ground up peanuts in the topping that was on Kirsten’s cookie, and with her EpiPen missing, her nut allergy acted fast to close her airway. Clearly, her death was intentional. And when one of Kristen’s friends find the missing EpiPen near Blaise’s table, suspicion falls on her.
Paislee doesn’t believe that Blaise had anything to do with Kristen’s death, but she has no evidence. So she and Lydia and Blaise try to get to the truth. There are a lot of loose ends. Kristen’s chef Fergus went missing after the event, and the women find out that he had just been fired that morning. An expensive gaming laptop had been stolen from the fund-raising auction. And when Kristen’s husband finds out that she’d had an affiar with Anders, the fund-raising chair, he showed up at the second day of the fund-raiser and kit Anders in the face.
There was no shortage of drama about the fundraiser, but Paislee has drama at home to distract her also. Her son has been getting into trouble at school and fighting with his best friend. Her grandfather is helping Paislee out with the shop and at home, but she worries that she’s putting too much on him. It’s the tourist season, so things are busy at her store. And then there are her conflicting feelings about the handsome Detective Inspector Zeffer.
But with all that going on, will Paislee and her friends be able to figure out who killed Kristen before they are targeted by the killer themselves?
Murder at a Scottish Social is the third book in Traci Hall’s Scottish Shire Mysteries. Following the adventures of knitter, yarn shop proprietor, and single mom Paislee, these mysteries feature the charming Scottish setting, warm friendships, and a strong sense of family.
I wanted to love this book. I am a big nerd for all things Scottish, and I love a well written cozy mystery. While I have never been coordinated enough to knit, I do enjoy crocheting (until my cat attacks the yarn), so I was really looking forward to this book. And it’s good. But there were moments when the heavy Scottish dialect used in the dialogue of every character weighed the story down some. And while I liked the storyline with her son and her grandfather, there were times that those scenes slowed down the momentum of solving the mystery. But I liked these characters a lot, and I thought the setting of Nairn was completely charming. I enjoyed my time there, and I look forward to going back again and spending more time with these characters.
Egalleys for Murder at a Scottish Social were provided by Kensington Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.
