Blackwork

As full-time owner of the Crewel World needlework shop and part-time sleuth, Betsy Devonshire has unraveled more than a few lies in the USA Today bestselling Needlecraft Mysteries. But this Halloween Betsy gets tied up with mayhem -- and murder... There's a witch running loose in the town of Excelsior, Minnesota, and her brew is...beer. Actually. Leona Cunningham. co-owner of The Barleywine, is a practitioner of INicca the nature-based religion that many mistakenly believe to be sorcery or black magic. But that doesn't bother the thirsty crowds -- or the Halloween Committee members who have fallen under the spell of Leona's tasty ales. Except for local alcohol aficionado Ryan McMurphy, who, after one too many pints, accuses Leona of being a real witch, blaming her for the series of accidents that have happened around town. When Ryan ends up dead without a mark on his body. Leona becomes the target of a witch hunt. But with Betsy on the case. the murderer doesn't have a ghost of a chance of getting away with it...

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.