Night of the Living Thread

A Threadville Mystery #4

by Janet Bolin

Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

June 3, 2014

ISBN-10: 0425267997

ISBN-13: 9780425267998

Available in: Paperback

Night of the Living Thread
by Janet Bolin

Zombies, killer dresses, and ancient curses prove that Halloween in Threadville can be sew spooky...

It’s early October, and hordes of visitors have descended on the tiny, celebrated village of Threadville, Pennsylvania, to attend a Halloween crafts fair, a zombie retreat, and the wedding of Edna Battersby—dear friend to Willow Vanderling, owner of the chic machine embroidery boutique, In Stitches.

As a friendly prank for Edna’s wedding, Willow and the rest of the Threadville gang have fashioned an overly extravagant hoopskirt, complete with lights and music. But in a bizarre turn of events, the garish gown is implicated in a mysterious lakeside murder.

Now Willow must follow a trail of glow-in-the-dark thread, delve into ancient Egyptian curses, and creep through a haunted graveyard to unearth a killer—before she becomes the next fashion victim...



Janet Bolin's Bio

I was about seven, and for years (!), I'd been offering really helpful suggestions about the clothes my mother designed and sewed. Now I was going to make my own skirt.

At the fabric shop, I ran my fingers along each bolt of cloth, probably about sixteen times. My mother didn’t mind. She was doing the same thing. Finally, after much indecision and heavy consultation, I chose a navy blue cotton broadcloth with a red pin stripe.

Back home, under my mother’s close supervision, I cut out a couple of large rectangles and a strip for the waistband. Using my mother’s old black Singer, I carefully stitched the rectangles into a tube, then gathered the tube to the waistband. I made a buttonhole and sewed on a big red button. We folded a deep hem, and my mother, whose ability to stitch a straight line was far superior to mine, sewed the hem with her machine. For the finishing touch, she showed me how to wind red embroidery floss under one machine stitch and over the next.

I had made my own skirt and embroidered it, too. I was hooked.

I also loved reading. I asked where books came from. People wrote them? Wow! I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up.

Whether I grew up or not is debatable, but now I’m writing books in which my main character solves crimes. She also embroiders the way I do now, with sewing and embroidery machines.

What could be better?