A STITCH BEFORE DYING

Guests who’ve come to a beautiful country inn seeking New Age wisdom find murder instead.

Maggie Messina, owner of the Black Sheep Knitting Shop in Plum Harbor, Mass., is delighted to be able to offer her friends Lucy, Dana, Suzanne and Phoebe a free weekend at a luxurious Berkshire inn. Her friend Nadine, who works at the inn, has asked Maggie to be a last-minute substitute for a no-show at the Creative Spirit Weekend led by the famous Dr. Max, a psychiatrist turned holistic practitioner. The inn is gorgeous, their cottage is a perfect haven and Maggie’s knitting classes go well. Even so, there’s tension in the air. Nadine’s sister Alice obviously loves Max, but her son Brian hates him. The assembled company includes Max’s former wife, who’s on the inn’s staff, and several guests who are there to hear a pitch about expanding the Dr. Max brand to two new locations. When a travel writer is found dead at the location of Dr. Max’s overnight camping trip, it turns out that he was really an investigator for a show specializing in sordid scandals. Since the writer was discovered in Dr. Max’s special hut, the police and the members of Maggie’s knitting group, who are no strangers to murder (Knit, Purl, Die, 2009, etc.), are left to decide who was the intended victim.

Slow-paced, all right, but Canadeo presents congenial characters and a mystery that keeps you guessing.