Recommendations based on "Lavender Lies Bleeding"

In this holiday yarn from the USA Today bestselling author of A Finely Knit Murder, all Izzy Chambers Perry wants for Christmas is to keep her brother out of jail....In Sea Harbor, the holidays mean cozy fires, festive carols, and soft skeins of yarn waiting to become hats and sweaters and scarves. And this year, Izzy and the other Seaside Knitters are also knitting tiny ornaments to decorate a tree for the first annual tree-trimming contest.Their holiday cheer is multiplied when Izzy’s younger brother, Charlie Chambers, unexpectedly arrives to volunteer at a local clinic. He brings with him outspoken hitchhiker Amber Hanson, who is returning to Sea Harbor to claim an inheritance. She quickly reacquaints herself with the area—and forms an unlikely friendship with Charlie. But their bond is shattered when her body is found beneath the undecorated trees on the Harbor Green.Charlie is a suspect in the murder, so Izzy and her fellow Knitters step in to uncover the truth. Their journey takes them into Charlie’s past and tests their fierce love for him. But it’s only by peeling away long-buried secrets that they can hope to restore joy to the season and enjoy the shining lights of the newly decorated trees....

A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice • Rex Stout meets Agatha Christie with a fresh twist in the new Pentecost and Parker Mystery, a delightfully hardboiled high-wire act starring two daring women sleuths dead set on justice as they set out to solve a murder at a traveling circus“A delight.... It’s a pleasure to watch [Pentecost and Parker] sifting through red herrings and peeling secrets back like layers of an onion.” The New York Times Book ReviewSomeone’s put a blade in the back of the Amazing Tattooed Woman, and Willowjean “Will” Parker’s former knife-throwing mentor has been stitched up for the crime. To uncover the truth, Will and her boss, world-famous detective Lillian Pentecost, travel to the circus, where they find a snake pit of old grudges, small-town crime, and secrets worth killing for.Will called Hart & Halloway’s Traveling Circus and Sideshow home for five years, and Ruby Donner, the circus’s tattooed ingenue, was her friend. To make matters worse, the prime suspect is Valentin Kalishenko, the man who taught Will everything she knows about putting a knife where it needs to go.To uncover the real killer and keep Kalishenko from a date with the electric chair, Will and Ms. Pentecost join the circus in sleepy Stoppard, Virginia, where the locals like their cocktails mild, the past buried, and big-city detectives not at all. The two swiftly find themselves lost in a funhouse of lies as Will begins to realize that her former circus compatriots aren’t playing it straight, and that her murdered friend might have been hiding a lot of secrets beneath all that ink.

Who is Spider Latham? Think John Wayne meets Miss Marple. When Spider is sent to help the Red Pueblo Museum, he doesn't suspect it will cause a rift between his wife, Laurie, and himself. Museum Director Martin Taylor is desperate, and his son Matt is angry. Some unknown person is bent on destroying the museum financially and is about to succeed. Then a handsome playboy's skull is bashed in with one of the museum's Anasazi ax, and everyone has motive for the murder. Can Spider untangle the web of secrecy and lies surrounding the museum before the Taylors lose it all? And in the process, can he save his own marriage?

Magic, books, and cats collide in a village near Niagara Falls in the latest Magical Bookshop Mystery from the author of Crime and Poetry.   In Cascade Springs, New York, Violet Waverly and her grandma, Daisy, are the proprietors of Charming Books, where the power of the written word is positively enchanting...   October in Cascade Springs means tourists are pouring in for the annual Food and Wine Festival, and Daisy hopes to draw those crowds to the store. She asks Violet and the local writing group, the Red Inkers, to give a reading of the works of Edgar Allan Poe in the shop’s back garden to entertain the revelers. Everyone eagerly agrees.   Yet their enthusiasm is soon extinguished when Violet discovers one of the writers dead during the event. After the shop magically tells Violet she’ll need to rely on Poe’s works to solve the murder, she enlists the help of her trusty tuxedo cat, Emerson, and the shop’s crow, Faulkner. But they must act fast before someone else’s heart beats nevermore...

You could say my sisters and I are hot-blooded bluebloods with a flair for fashion—and for solving crimes. But things have NOT been going well for us Blackbirds: Emma has busted out of a very exclusive clinic. Libby’s hormones are in overdrive from selling paraphernalia for Potions and Passions, a company that promises its customers full satisfaction. And I’m still dating mobster’s son Mick Abruzzo, which keeps me in a permanent tizzy. At least, nobody in my vicinity has been knocked off lately. Oops—looks like I spoke too soon…A TEMPEST IN A C-CUPNora’s next journalistic assignment: the unveiling of the most miraculous bra in fashion history. But before Nora can hand in her uplifting story, her boss is found shot execution-style and trussed up in expensive panty hose—an Abruzzo family trademark. Now Nora must find the killer before her innocent lover takes the rap. That means shadowing the most glamorous suspects in Philadelphia—including a bad-boy designer, a former child star, a high-strung ad exec, and a pair of luscious twin models. Though Nora’s accustomed to upper-crust murder, cross your fingers for the Blackbird sisters, because this time, high society has never seemed so low-down dirty.

The New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * The latest action-packed installment in the Nero Award-winning Pentecost & Parker Mystery series follows Lillian and Will tracking the suspicious disappearance of a woman who might have known too much. From the author of Fortune Favors the Dead and Murder Under Her Skin. Vera Bodine, an elderly shut-in with an exceptional memory, has gone missing and famed detective Lillian Pentecost and her crackerjack assistant Willowjean "Will" Parker have been hired to track her down. But the New York City of 1947 can be a dangerous place, and there's no shortage of people who might like to get ahold of what's in Bodine's head. Does her disappearance have to do with the high-profile law firm whose secrets she still keeps; the violent murder of a young woman, with which Bodine had lately become obsessed; or is it the work she did with the FBI hunting Nazi spies intent on wartime sabotage? Any and all are on the suspect list, including their client, Forest Whitsun, hotshot defense attorney and no friend to Pentecost and Parker. The clock is ticking to get Bodine back alive, but circumstances conspire to pull both investigators away from the case. Will is hot on the trail of a stickup team who are using her name--and maybe her gun--for their own ends. While Lillian again finds herself up against murder-obsessed millionaire Jessup Quincannon, who has discovered a secret from her past--something he plans to use to either rein the great detective in . . . or destroy her. To solve this mystery, and defeat their own personal demons, the pair will have to go nose-to-nose with murderous gangsters, make deals with conniving federal agents, confront Nazi spies, and bend their own ethical rules to the point of breaking. Before time runs out for everyone.

In this unique mystery debut, a shallow grave is found on a Pennsylvania farm, and one woman straddling the Amish and outside worlds must uncover a killer--and create a life on her own terms. . . Fifteen years after leaving her Old Order Amish life, Rachel Mast has returned to Stone Mill, Pennsylvania. Corporate success didn't bring true happiness, but Rachel also knows she can never be Amish again. Instead she runs a B&B and tries to help her community in ways they can't help themselves. But now a gruesome discovery has been made on her Uncle Aaron's cow pasture--the body of prominent Englisher businessman Willy O'Day. Aaron refuses to hire a lawyer, trusting his innocence, and his faith, to see him through. Rachel isn't so sure, especially given the long public feud between the two men. Her relatives won't speak to the police, but they will talk to Rachel--if she puts on a skirt and bonnet. Rachel knows emotions and entanglements run as complicated in the Amish world as outside it.

When a celebrity chef is found dead, Samantha Barnes, the "Cape Cod Foodie", finds her search for the world's best blueberry buckle turning into a search for a killerThe Fourth of July is coming, and for professional food lover Samantha Barnes, it’s all about the picnic. Okay, and the fireworks. And the parade. But mostly the picnic. What could be better than a DIY clambake followed by the best blueberry buckle in the world? Sam has finally found the perfect recipe in the kitchen of Clara Foster, famed cookbook author and retired restaurateur, and she’s thrilled when Clara agrees to a buckle baking lesson.  But when Clara dies in a house fire blamed on carelessness in the kitchen, Sam doesn’t believe it. Unfortunately, her doubts set in motion an investigation pointing to the new owner of Clara’s legendary restaurant—and a cousin of Sam’s harbormaster boyfriend.  So, in between researching the Cape’s best lobster rolls and planning her clambake, Sam needs to find Clara's killer before the fireworks really start....

In Middlebury’s Amish Artisan Village, murder is the last thing anyone expects. Can Amber and Hannah find these killers before fear unravels the community . . . or they strike again? Murder Simply Brewed Amber Wright is optimistic about the growing profit from her collection of Amish shops in Middlebury, Indiana—until she receives a call that Ethan Gray is dead. Hurrying over to A Simple Blend, she finds a solitary hole in the front window and the store manager lying next to the espresso machine, dead from an apparent heart attack. All the money is still in his register. When Amber hires a young Amish woman, Hannah Troyer, to take over the shop’s duties, the two women become fast friends—as well as amateur sleuths. The police believe Gray’s death is a by-product of vandalism, but Amber and Hannah aren't convinced. Murder Tightly Knit Even before she heard of Owen Esch’s death, Hannah Troyer knew something was amiss at The Cat’s Meow yarn shop. The store has been closing at odd times, the ever-dependable Mary isn’t always at her post . . . and an Englisch man has been seen loitering around back. Now, as leaves of brown, gold, and orange blanket Middlebury, Indiana, Owen lies dead on the Pumpkinvine Trail. The only clues to the murderer’s identity point in two very different directions—one of them leading right to The Cat’s Meow. Murder Freshly Baked Amber Bowman is thrilled to see the turnout for the Race for a Cure—and relieved to have something to distract her from the “Poison Poet”—an individual who has been sending notes containing bad poetry to warn of poisoned baked goods. Then Ryan Duvall crosses the finish line of the race—and falls down dead, murdered in broad daylight. But who did it? And why? The police suspect Preston Johnston, but Amber refuses to believe her employee could do such a thing. Amber once again looks to her young Amish friend Hannah Troyer to help her find the killer—and to determine if it’s the same person leaving the cryptic poems and pies.

Shop owner and part-time sleuth Betsy Devonshire has a knack for unraveling mysteries—and it’s entangled her in more than one knotty situation. Here, for the first time in one volume, are the first three Needlecraft Mysteries. CREWEL WORLD: When Betsy arrives in Excelsior, Minnesota, she winds up settling in—and taking a new job at her sister Margot’s needlework shop. It seems things are finally going her way—until Margot is murdered. In a town this friendly, no one seems like they could have done something so horrible. But Betsy isn’t going to rest until she finds her sister’s killer. FRAMED IN LACE: The historic Hopkins ferry is raised from the bottom of a lake—and everyone is stunned when a skeleton is found on board. But the evidence is a bit soggy: the boat sank in 1949, the victim was a woman, and an unidentifiable lacelike fabric was found nearby. Still, with a little help from her needlecraft shop patrons, Betsy intends to sew up this mystery. A STITCH IN TIME: Minnesota winters may be freezing, but Betsy’s heart is warmed when the best needle-workers in Excelsior volunteer to restore a damaged tapestry found in a church basement. Betsy even donates the materials for the project, hoping the publicity will boost her shop’s sales. But she soon realizes that her good intentions may have uncovered secrets that someone will kill to keep.