Scarf

More than 30 knitwear designers have contributed their innovative patterns to this impressive collection, which features gorgeous, full-color photographs of various scarves, capes, capelets and stoles. Because of their quick construction, editor Allen (co-author of Knitting for Dummies) calls scarves the "comfort food of knitting," likening them to, of all things, pasta. "Like pasta, scarves can be created with little effort and few basic materials," she writes.

When a wealthy man dies, his avaricious relatives look forward to inheriting all his money. However, he leaves a provision in his will that they all must spend a week together in his castle before they will be able to inherit anything. At the castle (which is cut off from the outside world), the relatives soon begin to be killed off one by one, each strangled with an Indian scarf. The estate's executor, a lawyer, sets out to find the killer before everyone–including himself–is murdered.