Argyles and arsenic

Constable Hobbs calls them the SCONES (Shadow Constabulary of Nosy Eavesdropping Snoops), and it fits. Immigrant Janet Marsh and her daughter, Tallie, along with Janet's best friend, Christine, and Tallie's college roommate run a bookstore and adjoining tea room in Inversgail, Scotland. The shops are a venue for an Argyle-sock knitting competition that promotes the exhibit of local handicrafts at the town museum. Shortly after the competition opens, Violet, the elderly owner of a baronial mansion on the edge of town and a significant benefactor of the museum, hosts a "decanting and decluttering" party. Janet and Christine find the museum director dead in a room that Violet claims was locked. Suspicion falls first on the local food-truck driver, but when he is found dead, also from arsenic poisoning, nearly everyone, from Constable Hobbs' grandmother to a local author, is a suspect. Hobbs calls in the SCONES, with the sock knitters providing behind-the-needles gossip. This ensemble-sleuth mystery will appeal to book lovers and needlecrafters as well as to fans of Paige Shelton (for the bookstore frame) or Allie Pleiter (for the knitting).

In MacRae's witty if flawed fifth Highland Bookshop mystery (after 2021's Heather and Homicide), American Janet Marsh and her crew of fellow expats at the combination bookstore/tearoom Yon Bonny Books have already proven themselves adept investigators of suspicious goings-on in their little Highland town of Inversgale. In fact, they have such a reputation that the locals have christened them SCONES--Shadow Constabulary of Nosy, Eavesdropping Snoops. So when Wendy Erskine, director of Inversgale's history museum, dies of arsenic poisoning at Violet McAskill's grand Fairy Flax Hall decluttering party, Constable Norman Hobbs asks the group to do a little unofficial detecting on the q.t. He's been sidelined on the investigation since his grandmother is one of the suspects. MacRae revels in clever wordplay and banter, but the meandering murder investigation is hard to follow, and the reveal seems like an afterthought. Cozy lovers who come for the atmosphere and the camaraderie will enjoy themselves. What's not to like about a knitting competition, Scottish scenery, books, and scones? Agent: Cynthia Manson, Cynthia Manson Literary. (Mar.)