Ike Hamilton is a man who seems to blend in the background. He's a homeless man who doesn't have much to lose and spends his days collecting bottles from people in order to earn money. Most people in town don't mind giving him their empty bottles and do what they can for Ike. Things take a mysterious turn when harmless Ike is found stabbed and dead. All fingers point to Leo, a seemingly newcomer to the town and the boy Angie saw with Ike at the annual Blessing of the Fleet, an event to commemorate the people they have lost at sea.

Angie is convinced that Leo is innocent, but as the story unfolds we find out that Leo isn’t who he says he is. As Angie starts investigating the cause of Ike’s mysterious death, she unravels a spider web of secrets different members of her town are keeping. It seems like Ike may have known a few of these secrets, but could that be the driving force that pushed someone to kill Ike him to keep him quiet and for their secrets to remain just that- secrets.

When I had requested this on NetGalley I regretted it soon after as this is the 8th book in this series. However I read it anyway because the synopsis really intrigued me, and I’m glad I did. This book can be read as a standalone. The author does a great job of describing and introducing the setting and the characters that you don’t feel like you missed out on anything from the previous books.

‘Thread on Arrival’ shows the lengths some people would go when you threaten to reveal their deepest, darkest secrets. It just goes to show that even the people in your tight-knit community, your neighbours could seem like strangers sometimes.

The mystery was lagging at times but then it would pick back up again and present the reader with more clues to make sense of and piece together. Aside from the occasional repetition of events and sequence, the mystery was good. The secondary characters were well written and I did enjoy reading about them, but what I really appreciated was how the author managed to capture the small town ambience so well in the novel. Makes me want to live in a small town myself. Wait also did a good job scattering the clues throughout the story and making it hard to single out just one perpetrator.

4 stars

I thoroughly enjoyed this mystery and would recommend this to anyone who is in need of a good, whodunit cozy mystery.

Thank you NetGalley and Kensington Books for providing me with an advanced reader’s copy of ‘Thread on Arrival’ by Lea Wait.


This review will be posted on my blog 'Chapters and Chats' (linked) on March 5 2019.

As a lover of both Maine and needlepoint, I always look forward to another book in this entertaining series. It is filled with Maine lore (I especially loved the beginning pages with story of the blessing of the fleet), interesting and intelligent characters and, of course, good food and good needlepoint. Angie Curtis has returned to her home in Haven Harbor, Maine after spending ten years as a private investigator in Arizona. When she and her boyfriend Patrick meet up with their needlepoint friends a the blessing of the fleet, they run into Leo, a runaway who has teamed up with Ike, a local man with disabilities who is cared for by many in the town. When Ike is killed and Leo becomes a suspect, Angie's friend Dave decides to take him under his wing, and Angie uses her investigative skills to find out more about Leo and to track down the real killer, This is another compelling mystery in an outstanding series.