The Stitch

Fourteen hundred quilts. One stern judge. One stitch that does not add up.

The Kutztown Folk Festival is back for one summer only, and retired accountant Walt Brubaker has been handed its books in a laundry basket: fifty thousand dollars short, with the tent bill written on a paper plate. His wife Grace is running the quilt barn, which means fourteen hundred quilts, a bell she never rings, and Ida Mae Kerschner, the head judge who failed Grace's ninth grade apron in 1976 and has never once said she was sorry.

Ida Mae turns every quilt over. On Monday she turns over the wrong one: a prize Double Wedding Ring with a beloved Mennonite name sewn on the back, spelled wrong. She pins a white card on it, the whole barn hears about it by noon, and on Wednesday morning she is found under the tallest rack in the barn. The ladder beside her has its brake on. Her clipboard is gone.

The promoter has spent the quilters' money. The son wants to sell the farm. A dealer in a linen suit cannot stop saying provenance. The Weaver sisters know more than they are telling, the church ladies know everything, and Freddie's goat has eaten the programs, the corn husk dolls, and possibly the evidence.

Ida Mae always said you can count the stitches but you can't fake the hours. Walt has until the big auction on Sunday. He is going to count both.

A retired accountant who times the Memorial Day parade and keeps a receipt for everything, including one he has never shown anyone

A wife who can stop a room with one look, and who finally learns why her old sewing teacher failed her

A best friend counting his sober days, and a goat in a flag vest who goes everywhere

Funnel cakes, strawberry shortcake, schnitz und knepp, birch beer, hex signs, a heat wave and a thunderstorm at the last auction of the summer

Big laughs, real heart, and a fair play puzzle with every clue on the page

No graphic violence, no explicit scenes, no bad language.

Just a good mystery, a festival you can smell from the parking lot, and a small town full of people you'll want to visit again.

The Stitch is Book Five in the Vera Crus Funny Cozy Mystery series, and it stands on its own. Get a lemonade. Keep the receipt.

Fourteen hundred quilts at the Kutztown Folk Festival, and one of them hides a clue.