THREAD AND DEAD

Money is the root of all, or at least most, evil in a little Maine town.

Iris Buckley and her grandmother own a vintage apron and linen shop in Blueberry Cove. Soon after Eleanor Brady, mistress of the large and rather decrepit Shorehaven Cottage, invites Iris to her home to look at a fascinating collection of old European sheets and other linens she wants to sell, she entangles Iris in a far more ambitious venture: arranging the sale of the trunks full of vintage clothing her mother brought from Belgium when she emigrated. Why Claudia de Witte, who worked as a nursemaid after she arrived, had such a trove of expensive clothing is just one of the puzzles that Iris and her friends must solve. Eleanor is renting rooms to several academics—Belgian Dr. Lukas de Wilde and his ambitious teaching assistants, Hailey Piper and Theo Nesbitt, who are working on a project to grow and harvest seaweed for food and fuel—along with putative seaweed farmers Jamaica Jones and Patrick Chance. The morning after attending a cocktail party complete with seaweed treats, a reluctant Iris goes climbing with her boyfriend, Ian, and her bestie, Madison, and spots the body of Hailey Piper dead on a ledge. Helping the police and researching Eleanor’s past soon put Iris and her friends in danger from someone willing to kill again.

Varied characters and seaweed lore enliven a mundane cozy that leaves lots of room for future plot and character development.