Fiber arts editor and amateur sleuth Pamela Paterson has joined her best friend, Bettina Fraser, and their neighborhood welcoming committee to greet Arborville, New Jersey’s newest resident. Tassie Hunt is an author whose latest book, A Sucker Born Every Minute, debunks spiritualism and the paranormal. Her new neighbors have not missed the irony in the fact that Tassie has now moved into the reputedly haunted Voorhees House. Perhaps, they wonder as they approach, she’ll be writing her next book on the house itself.

To the committee’s consternation, however, Tassie does not answer the door despite their having called ahead to confirm that she’d be home. Bettina notices that the back door is slightly ajar, so she pushes it open to call out–only to discover Tassie collapsed on the floor next to a freshly baked blueberry pie. Worse, she’s very much dead.

The rumor mill goes into high gear, speculating whether Tassie was frightened to death by a specter. Her neighbor Win Colley certainly thinks so. The elderly woman has spent a lot of time chronicling the various strange lights and noises emanating from Voorhees House when it was supposedly uninhabited and is more than happy to go into elaborate detail for Bettina and Pamela. But when the coroner’s report determines that Tassie did not die of natural causes but was murdered, it looks as if Arborville has a real, live killer who won’t hesitate to strike again. The question is not only who but why?

This was another engaging installment of the Knit & Nibble Mystery series, as Pamela not only puzzles out another whodunnit but also deals with the mysteries of love. While her relationship with handyman Pete Paterson (no relation) looks promising, she can’t help but still feel attracted to her neighbor Richard Larkin. She’s also concerned for her daughter Penny, who is going on a month-long trip to build a school in Guatemala with a handsome friend. Solving murders is practically a piece of cake in comparison with figuring out the vagaries of the human heart!

As with all the other books in the series, there was a knitting pattern and a recipe included. This is the non-deadly version of a possibly killer pie:

Pamela’s Blueberry Pie

Ingredients

2 pie crusts

2 pints fresh blueberries

1 tsp cider or white vinegar

¾ cup sugar, or a full cup if desired

3 tbsp flour

½ tsp cinnamon

Pinch of salt

Instructions

Wash the blueberries and pick them over, removing any stems or squashed berries. Sprinkle them with the vinegar. Mix the sugar, flour, cinnamon, and pinch of salt in a small bowl, sprinkle it over the berries, and mix gently with a large spoon.

[Pat one] crust into place, curving it up and over the sides of the pie pan. Scoop the berries into the pie pan and gently spread them over the bottom crust. 

[Set the second pie crust] atop the berries [and] smooth it out.

Tuck the overhanging crust under all the way around and pat and smooth it until it’s merged with the bottom crust. To make a fancy edge, place the index and middle finger of your left hand on the edge, pointing outward and with half an inch between them. Use the thumb of your right hand to push a little ridge into the dough, working your way all around the edge of the pie doing the same thing. With a sharp knife, slice a few steam vents into the top crust, in a decorative pattern if you wish.

Bake the pie at 425 degrees for 10 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350 degrees and bake for 30 to 40 minutes longer. The pie is done when the crust is lightly browned, especially around the edges.

The pie is delicious served with ice cream, especially while it’s still warm.

While Peggy Ehrhart includes instructions for making the pie crusts in the book, I had neither the space in this column nor the time in my life to do the same. Store-bought crusts are perfectly fine in this, though if you’re not as busy as I am, I do highly recommend checking out the book and trying to make the whole thing from scratch. As it is, my corner-cutting served me well, even if my crust crimping left a lot to be desired.

The pie itself comes out wonderfully. Like the book’s health-conscious Nell Bascombe, I generally prefer the option of using less sugar. Three quarters of a cup was perfectly sweet, especially when combined with vanilla ice cream. Not drowning the filling in sugar also allowed the slight tartness of the blueberries to really shine through.

Next week, we head just a short way south on the East Coast to whip up some delightful sandwiches while figuring out the link between a fresh corpse and a very cold case. Do join me!

See also: Cooking the Books: A Parfait Crime by Maya Corrigan