Customer Reviews

Dropped Dead Stitch (A Knitting Mystery)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I wish I could recommend Dropped Dead Stitch. I love knitting; I love cozy mysteries; and, I loved Sefton's first few books of this series.

But, I can't recommend Dropped Dead Stitch. The mystery isn't compelling. Heck, it's not even interesting. Typically, I'm so eager to know whodunit that I turn page after page and read an entire book in one day. The mystery in Dropped Dead Stitch is so dull, I didn't care who did it.

On the plus side, Sefton tackles the difficult topic of rape with respect and sensitivity which gives the book a slightly more serious tone. Sefton also pays off one of the long-term relationships with a wedding and picks up the threads of a romance that was hinted at in Dyer Consequences. Finally, Dropped Dead Stitch drops clues that there may be trouble ahead in Kelly and Steve's relationship, perhaps even a parting of the ways due to financial strain and career goals.

But, I don't care about the characters any more. What makes characters interesting is how they deal with conflict and life changes. Sefton's characters have no conflicts or life changes. They drink coffee, eat pizza, play softball, knit, and play board games. That's no more interesting than my own life. As I read the comments from other reviewers, I see that the frequent descriptions of hum-drum daily life in Dropped Dead Stitch turn them off, too.

As a reader, when I pay hardcover prices, I expect an author to step-up the quality of their work. I'm not looking for the "great American novel," but for hardcover prices, I expect a quality mystery. Dropped Dead Stitch isn't worth the hardcover price or the time you'll spend reading it.

I just finished reading this book and am puzzled by other reviewers responses. They all mention that the first few books in the series were good but this one was not. Frankly I am stumped. I too have read all the other books in the series and also felt they were good, not great, but good and truth be told this one is just the same as the rest. The same people, same idealic life, same unlikly senrio's, in short - same formula. That is what I expected and that is what I got. I enjoy these books as easy reads and for the feel good fellowship of the main charecters as well as the knitting lingo. I love reading other knitting fiction as well. So again, why is everyone chiming in with such negative reviews? If they expected more after already reading the earlier books, then that is their issue.

On a more positve note: I made the recipe for gingersnapes out of Fleece Navida, and they were awesome! I took them to our church Christmas caroling party and they were snorkled down in tem minutes flat with rave reviews! I highly recomend these.

Blessings, Beth Ann Danielsen

I've read several books in this series, but this one was the WORST! The writing was VERY amateur...sort of Nancy Drew meets creative writing class! Too much info not necessary to the story (decription of a game of Trivual Pursuit, description of a softball game..HO-HUM!) and the total OVER use of...tease/teased/teasing as a way to describe how someone spoke as well as the phrases...running her fingers through the Bamboo and silk yarns or just plain running her finger through the yarns!! There MUST be other words available! The book became redundant and VERY diffucult to finish...which I did only because I paid for it! Where was her editor? Or,if she had one, s/he should be fired!!!!

I've read most of the books in the series, and this one was the weakest by far. This isn't to say I didn't enjoy reading it, just that the book has some problems, and apparently they bother me a lot, hence the fairly long review for a fairly fluffy novel. Spoilers ahead (only through the first 30 pages, I'm not going to reveal whodunnit), so beware.

The biggest issue is that that Ms. Sefton tried to use a cozy murder mystery to explore how people react to rape. I appreciate that she tried to do this with sensitivity, but I think the cozy mystery genre is the wrong place to tackle this issue. Having decided to go with this story-line, I think the way it developed was implausible, and I think Ms. Sefton missed an opportunity to do some good with her book.

So, the story-line is this: Jennifer, who has been barhopping and bringing different guys home for years, is one night followed home by a guy she met at a bar, raped and beaten. Despite significant bruising and other evidence of the attack, she decides not to go to the police because she is afraid, given her history, that she will be dragged through the mud if she prosecutes. Months go by, she begins seeing a good therapist, and agrees to help out at a weekend retreat for victims of sexual abuse. Unfortunately, it turns out that her rapist is the owner of the ranch where the retreat takes place, and there he is, at the ranch. After speaking with her therapist, she decides to stay, and she tells the other workshop participants about her experience - so a whole group of women who have been sexually abused are in close proximity to a man they believe is a rapist.

A lot of women don't report rape for exactly the same fear that Jennifer cited in the book. But that decision was made in about half a page - Jennifer tells her friend that she doesn't want her sexual history exposed, her friend agrees, that's it. If the author had wanted to address rape in this book, I think she owed it to her readers to do so more thoroughly - maybe by mentioning that Colorado actually has some of the most victim-friendly rape shield laws in the United States. And a case where the victim is physically injured - like bruising - is a lot easier to prove than a non-violent date rape case is. So, it isn't that Jennifer's decision was implausible, it's that the summary treatment of that decision - no thought, no discussion, nothing - rang false. I also think the author could have taken some steps towards chipping away at the stigma that attaches to rape victims if she had even had just one of the other characters make the opposing argument.

Next, I thought it was unbelievable that Jennifer would agree to stay on the same ranch as her rapist. I just don't buy it. He raped her, he beat her, and she's afraid of him, but she's willing to stay within a few hundred feet of him and, at times, wander off by herself, without knowing where he is or if he might attack her again? The author tried to explain this by having Jennifer frame it in terms of a decision - she can "choose" to leave, she can "choose" to stay and confront him, etc. But I don't buy it. I also don't buy that the other women - victims of sexual assault - would choose to stay so close to a violent rapist, either.

Finally - while Jennifer's friends in the book are good about not judging her for her former bar-hopping ways, I think the story has an element of slut-shaming about it. Of course it's *Jennifer* who gets raped, not one of her respectable, monogamous friends. And now that she's been raped, she sees the error of her ways - she was avoiding intimacy by sleeping with a bunch of guys! It couldn't have been because she actually wanted to sleep with them.

I appreciate that the author wanted to tell a story - but by choosing to address this issue in the first place, the author has an obligation to treat it more seriously than she did.

My husband and son bought me the first three books for Mother's Day a few years ago, as I love to knit and I love mysteries. Although not deep, the first few were fun and satisfying. At this point, the author has lost her ability to do anything interesting with the characters. I agree with the sentiments of the others..... the writing is very amateurish, boring and repetitive. Enough with the coffee, enough with the same language describing the yarn.... and the adults who play games and are always teasing is so insipid as to be nauseating. And the assault was absolutely not dealt with in a serious enough manner.

I started this book hoping for an improvement over the last. I only lasted three chapters.... just simply not worth the time.

I own all the books in this series. I never expected them to be intellectually stimulating...they're just fun, mindless beach reads. However, this most recent book is written in such an amateur manner that it resembles teen fiction. The only way I could describe the plot is "incredibly lame".

I have read all of the books in this series and in the beginning, would look forward to the next one. After the last few books, though, I am tired of Ms Sefton's style. Her main character, Kelly, goes about trying to solve mysteries, which is all well and good. But, every time she runs into a different friend, she has to relate the story thus far, almost verbatim. I am approximately 80% through this book and have read the same telling of at least three different episodes at least four times each. It makes me feel like she's padding the manuscript to fill up pages.

There were confidentiality breaches regarding the people in counseling. The retired policeman gets and spreads way too much information about the investigation, and his "contacts" at the police force should be reprimanded. He should be chastising the witnesses for withholding information, and stop sending the police on wild goose chases.

There are too many such nagging points that keep me from wanting to finish this book.

I recommend that Ms Sefton take some writing courses and learn how to get out of her formulaic patterns and get her message across without so much repetition. This will be the last book of hers that I read.

I have been a fan of Maggie Sefton's knitting mysteries, but this one is more about living together and partying than about the mystery.

I didn't get past the third chapter. I did not appreciate the irresponsible way the author treated Jennifer's assault. It was not believable. I won't be buying or reading any more of her books.

This book in dismal, the characters are flat and the dialogue is boring. I could care less about the story-line. I am returning this book and getting my money back. It is not worth reading and I question how books like this one ever get into print. Pages of this mind-numbing group playing a board game, pages of them eating pie... huh??? This is the first book of Maggie Sefton I have attempted to read and it is the last. I would not recommended this book to anyone.