A Humorous Crochet Mystery in “By Hook or By Crook”

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By Hook or By CrookIn By Hook or By Crook by Betty Hechtman, Molly Pink exercises her senses of nosiness and nonsense once again. The Tarzana Hookers, the group that meets in Molly’s bookstore to crochet items for charity, have a sale of their items at the park, and when they get ready to pack up and leave, they find a bag with an intricate fillet crochet piece with various images embedded in it that signify messages. The only problem is that they don’t have any idea what the clues mean, so Molly takes over the job of trying to detect the meaning. Through a series of clever deductions, Molly determines who made the fillet crochet piece, but when she finally makes it to the woman’s house, it is to find the crocheter dead. When the police don’t take the death very seriously, Molly tracks the clues from the crochet piece to the truth and the murderer.

By Hook or By Crook is the third book in Betty Hechtman’s Crochet Mystery series, and each book is a significant improvement on the previous. The mystery in this book was fascinating, with the many steps taken to find the solution to the clues embedded in the embroidery. The characters proved clever and fun, and we become part of the lives of the members of the Tarzana Hookers.

The outstanding feature of this book is its humor. Molly finds herself in numerous ridiculous situations, such as the visit of her parents. Her mother was part of the She-La-Las, a trio that scored a single huge hit 50 years earlier, and the She-La-Las are in town to try to stage a comeback tour of the three old ladies.

In one of the funniest scenes, Molly gets detained during her trip to Catalina Island and has to spend the night there. She gets awakened by a phone call at 3 a.m., causing alarm. It is Barry, her homicide cop boyfriend, who has been out of town and out of touch with Molly since her parents arrived. He has returned to town and shown up at her house in the middle of the night, stripped in the living room, and jumped into Molly’s bed. With her parents. Molly’s mother calls 911, and her dad gives Barry a massive black eye. Before Barry can get his pants on, the cops have broken down the door and are having a lot of fun at Barry’s expense.

I think it’s valuable to read the first book in the series, Hooked on Murder, in order to get a clear introduction to the series. But even if you don’t connect to that book strongly, I highly recommend reading this book, as it is very clever and funny. I give this book five stars!

Disclaimer: I received this audiobook for free for review purposes, but that had no influence on the content of my review.

To purchase this book for yourself, click here on Amazon.

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