Customer Reviews

Moon Spinners: A Seaside Knitters Mystery

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The ocean breezes, sandy beaches and the moon glistening over the waves means we are back in Sea Harbor, Massachusetts, for this third installment of Sally Goldenbaum's Seaside Mystery Series.

The Moon Spinners are at work, "imagine the women of ancient Celtic myth pulling the silvery strands of light from the sky and winding it on distaffs until weeks later the waning moon would disappear completely, leaving the world wrapped in a blanket of total darkness, the tides quieter, creatures safe from the hunter."*

The Seaside Knitters are attending a fundraiser to build a new community center. Two building companies are working together on the project even though the families can't stand each other. The party is interrupted by the drunken ex-wife of one of the builders who also happens to be a sister of the other. This little interruption causes one lovely socialite to leave the party early.

At the same time Sam Perry is scuba diving at Devil's Cove with some friends. It is his first night dive and as he emerges from the water he sees the moon hanging so low that he could almost reach up and touch it. It looks almost eerie, Sam, never without his camera, turns it up toward the night sky, but his attention is quickly drawn to a car moving much to fast down the curvy road that outlines the edge of Devil's Cove. The other divers surfacing around him notice the car's headlights and they all watch in horror as it misses the curve and flies through the air across the moon and falls to the rocky shore below. Later we learn the brake lines on the car had been cut which means, it was no accident, but MURDER.

The Seaside Knitters spring into action to try to find the killer, but the clues do not knit together easily, many loose ends cause their theories to unravel, there is something they are all missing, the one thread that will stitch everything together.


Each book in the series gets better and better. The characters are like old friends, and their friendship keeps them together through thick and thin. It doesn't matter if you are young or old, male or female, this group that meets every Friday night for food, drinks and fellowship will always be there for each other, and they welcome new people with ease. Yes, there is a mystery to solve and the plot is tight, but these stories are more about the friendship to me. It would be wonderful if we all could have a fantastic group of friends like this tightly knit group in Sea Harbor. I hope there are more books in the series, I anxiously await another visit to this seaside village.

*excerpt from book



Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Obsidian, an imprint of The New American Library, a division of Penguin Publishing. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255 : "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

Nice group of knitters involved in solving this mystery. Lots of reference to knitting and good characters in the story.

Mystery itself leaves a little to be desired, but that makes it more believable that this group of women could become involved in the solving of it.

Pleasant read.

I mean it. I want to eat the seafood. I want to shop in the arts and crafts stores. I want to visit Izzy's yarn store and fondle the yarn. I especially want to go to Ben and Nell Endicott's Friday night dinners on their deck! THE MOON SPINNERS was a worthy entry to a wonderful series. I kept going back and forth--this person did it! No, that person! No, somebody else entirely! I figured it out at just about the same time as Nell did, which is a credit to Sally Goldenbaum's clue-planting skills. Since I can't move to Sea Harbor, all I can do is wait for the next book in the series. Write faster, Sally! Write faster!

The Seaside Knitters (Nell, Izzy, Cass and Birdie) are taking time off from helping Gracie Santos open her new restaurant the Lazy Lobster and Soup Café on Pelican Pier in Sea Harbor, Massachusetts. They are attending a charity event at the Country Club where Gracie's Uncle Alphonso and his wife Sophia are joining with the Delaney's Construction Company to donate at cost materials to build an addition to the community center at Pelican Bay.

Gracie's mother Julianne shows up at the gala and makes a scene because her brother, in charge of her trust, refuses to give her any more spending money at the urgency of Sophia.. When Sophia leaves her party she loses control of her car and dies in the crash. The police find evidence that the brake line was cut so they arrest Julianne when they find material in her vehicle on how to fix a car's brake line. The Seaside Knitters refuse to accept Julianne murdered her sister-in-law so they start their own investigation.

Readers will thoroughly enjoy the third Seaside Knitters amateur sleuth (see Death by Cashmere and Patterns in the Sand) because of the diverse yet likable lead protagonists whose interests vary, but remain close friends. They come across as detectives as they make inquiries the same way they knit, one stitch at a time. The key that brings plausibility to the fine story line is they do their investigation without facing life threatening danger. This is a delightful entry in a fun regional mystery series.

Harriet Klausner

a clever who dunnit with cahrming characters
set in a quaint seaside village
it inspired me to learn to knit

I have loved this series since the very first book & always look forward to the next.
I love to read & also knit, so these books are right to my liking!
I love the way Sally Goldenbaum describes life on Cape Ann & the friendship of the four knitters, of various ages. Nell,Birdie, Cass, & Izzy come together and solve the cozy mystery while knitting or eating Nell's yummy creations.
Being a knitter I especially love to hear about the projects & fibers they are knitting & the pattern at the end of the book. The series is just a fun read for me & I hope you too.

Other reviewers have more than adequately summarized the plot of this book, so I'll skip that part and get down to talking about it.

Remember (or imagine, if necessary) when you were a kid and went to Great-Aunt Mimi's for Easter dinner? You were probably the only child there, and except for your parents, everyone else in the room was over sixty. Did you enjoy coloring in your coloring book and listening to the adults "visit"? Or was the entire five hours a genteel Chinese Water Torture? The former type (and for good or ill, I'm in that group) will love The Seaside Knitters series; the latter will probably fling it aside after fewer than fifty pages, finding the pace slow bordering on glacial.

I'll admit I found the first book, Murder by Cashmere, difficult to get into, and reviewers rightly complain of being led to believe that Izzy - the ex NY lawyer, who gave up her career, etc, as we've seen so many other times - would be the central character, only to discover that it would be Nell, Izzy's aunt. By this third book, though, Goldbaum and her editors have settled into a wordy but tolerable style and we've gotten to know the principal characters fairly well. ( I still think the knitting project included in each book is too difficult, but maybe that's because I'm a lousy knitter.)

The names of the characters help establish the tone: Nell, Ben, Birdie, Izabel, Grace and Esther all invoke a gentler time, and our friends spend their spare time knitting, cooking, painting and doing woodwork. There is very little "action" in the book, and what there is largely takes place off-stage. There is a great deal of talking and thinking and finding of things, with attention paid to the slightest detail, and not a lot of moving around - the only folks who ever break a sweat are the joggers. The victims die without making much mess. But that's rather the point here; instead of being a failing, this book relies on us knowing and caring about the characters, giving that feeling of catching up with friends, perhaps making a new friend here and there. After three books, we can draw the streets and shops, feel like we've visited there and know what Nell will make for those fabulous Friday night deck dinners.

There are enough new characters in Moon Spinners that the evil-doer isn't immediately apparent, as is so often the case, although if you're paying attention you will likely figure it out as Nell sifts through the clues and motives. Another reviewer said that the book is more like a puzzle; I agree with that and appreciate that all of the pieces are used.

So go gather your Great-Aunt Mimi, a thermos of iced tea and a picnic lunch, and read Moon Spinners on the beach. You're definitely in for a quiet treat. If your idea of a fun beach day involves beer and beach soft ball, though, I know a group of knitters in Colorado ....

I enjoy reading mystery series where the characters are knitters or crocheters. As a bonus, there are usually patterns, sometimes recipes, after the end. After a few chapters, I began to get annoyed by details about food. I don't think it helped the plot move along and it became tedious. At about 75% ( page numbers would be nice on all Kindles), I started speed-reading to find out who the muderer was and just wanted to finish the book. I have read another of her books and liked it and plan to try another.

I have read most of Sally Goldenbaum's Seaside Mysteries and Queen Bee Mysteries. They are both set in a knitting shop and the characters are women who knit all the time. I can't put the books down, so my knitting goes by the wayside. I think they are that good.

The first book arrived .... damaged. Returned it. Replacement arrived .... damaged. Returned it. Never read the book, so this review is about the vender. Too bad Amazon, but your quality control is poor.