Murder Most Crafty [Hardcover]

Susan Wittig Albert (Author), Paula Woods Jan Burke Dorothy Cannell (Author), Tim Myers (Author), Monica Ferris & Denise Williams (Author), Judith Kelman Victoria Houston (Author), Sujata Massey Margaret Maron (Author), Gillian Roberts Sharan Newman (Author), Maggie Bruce (Author, Editor, Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 5, 2005

Handicrafts are fast becoming a favorite American pasttime. Another, of course, is a good mystery. Combine the two and you have this delightfully different anthology on the art and craft of murder, in which the likes of knitting needles, handblown glass, wood files, and adhesives prove to be implements of a nastier sort of handiwork.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

It's not all murder, she said, and it's certainly one of the most unusual amalgamations between two covers. Editor and writer Bruce has concocted a real whodunit how-to by assembling 15 award-winning, homicide-oriented authors, asking them to incorporate a craft whimsy somewhere in the plot, including an actual pattern and brief history, then compiling. Gillian Roberts' "Ellie's Chair" introduces readers to double trouble: flea markets and painted wood furniture. Weaver Parnell Hall gives Coach Crandall his just and deadly rewards, and subsequently explains the intricacies of this woven necklace. Stories, though anthology---size, do make for some great reading and guessing, but many of the 15 crafts are often treated without much attention to instructions and details--and are sans illustrations or photographs. Appended are lists of museums and artisan centers, shows and festivals, publications, guilds and organizations, craft supplies, and instructions. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Maggie Bruce, the creator of the Lili Marino series, is otherwise known as Marilyn Wallace, editor of the award-winning five-volume Sisters in Crime anthologies, co-editor of Deadly Allies, and the author of several mystery and suspense novels.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Berkley Hardcover; anthology edition (April 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425202062
• ISBN-13: 978-0425202067
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,591,010 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Mixed Bag of Suspense and Crafts, October 17, 2006

By 

L. Kelly (Lakewood, CO) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Murder Most Crafty: 15 All-New Stories of Criminal Handiwork and the Art of Deduction (Paperback)

"Murder Most Crafty" offers the reader 15 short stories which combine murder/suspense with a "craft" theme. Each short story is followed by a simple introductory project for the craft featured in the story. Crafts run the gamut from basket-making and fly-tying, to making paper by hand. As in any collection of stories, the quality of the stories varies widely. My favorites in the collection were "How to Make a Killing Online", by Victoria Houston, "The Deepest Blue" by Sujita Massey, and "The Collage to Kill for" by Susan Wittig Albert. In "How to Make A Killing Online", we meet a crafter of dry flies, Martha Estabrook, who gets mixed up with a online stalker. Ms. Houston is a new author for me, but this great story will certainly prompt me to check out her other books. "The Deepest Blue" features information on the Japanese method of dying indigo cloth, and was a well-told mystery. Ms. Albert's story "The Collage to Kill For" features her heroine China Bayles and was thoroughly enjoyable, especailly for fans of the China Bayles series. Other authors whose stories are in the collection are: Maggie Bruce, Jan Burke, Dorothy Cannell, Susan Dunlap, Monica Ferris and Denise Williams, Parnell Hall, Judith Kelman, Margaret Maron, Tim Myers, Sharan Newman, Gillian Roberts, and Paula Woods.

Many of the stories feature characters in existing series, which readers unfamiliar with the series might have trouble following. That is my main criticism of the book, that many of the tales were hard to appreciate if you aren't familiar with the author's stories. Still, if you are a fan of "hobby mysteries" you might enjoy discovering new authors featured in this book.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Too much crafts, not enough craft, September 19, 2006

By 

L. Billings (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Murder Most Crafty: 15 All-New Stories of Criminal Handiwork and the Art of Deduction (Paperback)

This is supposed to be a short-story murder-mystery anthology where all the stories have a "crafts" tie-in. Unfortunately, it serves as an excellent example of the things I find wrong with much of the current "hobby mysteries" craze.

There are 14 stories in the collection, all by authors with at least one professionally-published murder mystery to their name. Out of that 14, four aren't murder mysteries at all; they're descriptions of how the killer got away with it. Another is about a theft rather than a murder, but is otherwise competently written. Several of the stories veer sharply away from mystery and into horror; one of those has no sympathetic character anywhere in the story, and its ending is so ambiguous as to go well beyond "making the reader think" and over into "making the reader say, 'What the fleep is supposed to have happened here?'" And one story telegraphs its ending in the second scene, then proceeds straight to said ending without even the courtesy to the reader of a single red herring -- "mystery" on the fourth-grade reading level.

The important thing about each and every one of these stories isn't the mystery; it's the craft-project instructions at the end. And you can tell which of the authors cared enough about their readers to come up with a reasonably well-crafted mystery as well as a craft project, and which ones just dashed off the first idea with a crafts connection that came into their heads, took the check, and ran.

I might look into the series novels by a couple of the listed authors, but this book is going straight into the cull box for the secondhand store. Which is where I suggest you look for it, especially if you like to play with the project instructions in hobby-mystery books, because they're pretty clearly the part the writers and the editor spent the most effort on.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars superb anthology, April 5, 2005

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Murder Most Crafty (Hardcover)

Though technological advances have made mass production not only much easier but customized so the phenomena of craft shops and shows around the country might seem like an anachronism but remain very popular. This fifteen short story collection anthology adds murders as the extra ingredient in the artistic crafts. The tales are top rate with each hooking the audience (and not just because the star is making a rug) as the reader seeks the pattern to the homicide. Fan favorites include China Bayles, Lili Marino, Betsy Devonshire, Rei Shimura, Catherine Levendeuer, etc. In other words, some of the craftier series sleuths star in these shorts. Each author provides a craft tip, but what make MURDER MOST CRAFTY worth reading are the latest appearances of some of our favorite detectives starring in fine tales.

Harriet Klausner