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Torie O'Shea #10

Died in the Wool

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With the Garden Club's First Annual Rose Show right around the corner and a historic house up for sale, Torie O'Shea, mother of three and president of the historical society in New Kassel, Missouri, has her hands full.


 
Nosy by nature, Torie can't help but poke around the old Kendall house, rumored to contain rare Civil War artifacts and even rarer quilts that would make fantastic additions to the historic Gaheimer House that Torie runs. But why stop there when the house itself would make such a wonderful addition to New Kassel's historical homes? It could even become a textile museum. Sadly, the house's history is as tragic as it is rich: In the 1920s, three twenty-something siblings committed suicide, and the more Torie uncovers, the more involved she becomes.
 
Her curiosity draws her into some dark places, but it's a present-day crime that sends her racing to unravel exactly what happened to those three siblings before anyone turns up dead.


 
The brilliant patchwork of characters and tightly stitched plots in Rett MacPherson's Died in the Wool will delight fans of this terrific series and win over new ones.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published March 6, 2007

5 people are currently reading
188 people want to read

About the author

Rett MacPherson

18 books115 followers
Rett MacPherson was born in Saint Louis, Missouri. She is the author of the popular Torie O'Shea mysteries and helped to pioneer the sub-genre of genealogical mysteries. She is also a bead and fabric artist and loves wineries, cemeteries, genealogy, history and of course, books.

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5 stars
141 (32%)
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192 (44%)
3 stars
84 (19%)
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15 (3%)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
Profile Image for Linda.
1,598 reviews24 followers
July 13, 2009
This is one of my favorite adult mystery series. Torie O'Shea feels like an old friend- she's a genealogist, while I'm very interested in genealogy, and she's also very nosy and can't stop until she's found out the whole story and I'm well, nosy too! This one involves a century old mystery- about a family whose three grown children all committed suicide. The daughter of the family made exquisite quilts. When Torie's friend is poisoned after touching one of the quilts Torey wonders if the woman really did commit suicide. And what caused this family to resort to such tragedy?
Profile Image for Linda.
2,323 reviews59 followers
April 25, 2025
This book was all cold case and I loved it. It’s so interesting to see how people can figure out what went on 80 years ago. Technically this wasn’t even a cold case when Torie started but with the advances in forensic science you can see things that were missed the first time.
Profile Image for Nancy.
494 reviews13 followers
September 11, 2016
A rose show shouldn't cause murder but there is a possibility that the one Tori O'Shea is in charge of did. Not to mention she is buying what many consider a haunted house of vast proportions.

Tori, her family and the town of New Kassel, Missouri were a delight to read about. This happens to be book #10 in this series, but no matter - you can jump right in and learn as you go. The house Tori wants to buy is an old Victorian in which all three siblings killed themselves. This didn't happen recently but it is a draw since on of the siblings was a very well=known quilter and left many of her quilts in the house.

Quilts. Roses. Murder. Suicide. A great way to spend a few evenings!
Profile Image for Pamela Mclaren.
1,694 reviews114 followers
June 9, 2024
Torie O'Shea, historian, museum owner and family archivist for the small town of New Kassel, Missouri, has plenty of things on her plate to keep her days filled, especially with her own growing family. But she faces new challenges as her middle child, a daughter, seeks to take her place in the family and life, while Torie extends herself to take up a new goal: purchasing the infamous Kendall home with plans to turn it into a textile museum. The new museum will honor the amazing quilts of Glory Kendall, but first Torie has to solve the dark mystery of the Kendall mystery that seems to haunt the house.

Because Glory, the middle child of her own family, and like her brothers, the town believes all three committed suicide. One brother came back from World War I shattered by what he saw, experienced and was forced to do to survive his service, but what caused Glory and her other brother to kill themselves?

And as Torie unravels the secrets kept for nearly 80 years, she finds more questions that answers. Despite that, she continues to work to find at least a bit of truth to help her honor the skilled craftsmanship of Glory Kendall.

The Torie O'Shea tales are funny, sweet cozies but they also often show life at its basest, and throughout, Rett MacPherson's lead character Torie O'Shea finds the means to make sense of it all and provide the community to grow wiser and more caring of their neighbors.
Profile Image for Dasha L.
22 reviews1 follower
April 20, 2023
So I bought this book on a whim at a resale shop, and I am so glad that I did!! I think I found one of my new favorite authors in Rhett MacPherson. The Torie O'Shea series is about a genealogist though she juggles being a mother of three, she is constantly finding herself diving into old cold cases while doing family tree research.

In this book, an old mansion full of history is put up for sale. Being the head of her county's local historical society, Torie is interested in purchasing the old mansion with intentions to open it to the public as a museum. Torie starts to dig through the old home and the belongings of the original owners: Sandy Kendall was a well-known man in the community, along with his three children. His youngest, Glory was well known for her beautiful quilts all over the country. Unfortunately the family is also well known for their tragic past. Not only does young Glory fall to suicide but as do her two older brothers, or so everyone thought. As Torie goes through Glory's old quilts and home, she starts to piece together that the past might not be what everybody thought. Though they died 100 years ago, the Kendall family has a big secret that puts one of Torie's friends in the hospital. Can Torie save the life of her friend and find out what happened in this house a hundred years ago? Or is one more life added to the tragic past? Find out!!
Profile Image for Rhonda Clark.
345 reviews1 follower
February 2, 2021
After the last two books, which talk A LOT about the gossip in a small community, I was wondering about the absence of it here... Three young adult siblings committed suicide within a year of each other in the early 19020s, and no one gossiped about it? I am really glad this time, no one else died (in the present day), although if Torie hadn't stopped by Maddie's house, she would have. I am a little unclear about something, and that is the pins in the quilt. If they had been contaminated by strychnine, how did Maddie get that quilt and/or the pins in the first place? And how would someone have done put it on the pins without giving themselves strychnine poisoning? It's curious how people suggested the oldest brother and last suicide victim, Whalen, was odd, but no one gave any indication about the father's character (the mother having died almost 10 years before, the father living into the 1950s)? And what about the ghost in the house that Torie's buying to be used to display the quilts made by Glory Kendall?
839 reviews
September 10, 2018
Great entry in the series. This story is a bit more laid back that others in the series with less action and more detective work. And it worked! Torie and her family provide lots of interest but it's the mystery that takes center stage. One thing I found refreshing was that the author didn't rely on diaries to solve the mystery which would have been the easy way out. Instead Torie uses her genealogy skills and is even able to track down a witness or two. Very interesting. I love this book and the quilting aspect was an interesting angle on the mystery.
Profile Image for Michael.
160 reviews7 followers
January 6, 2022
Part of what makes this series so good is that it isn't just about the mystery. Rhett MacPherson has created a fully realized life. We see her with her children as they and she grows older. We see her be petulant and generous, rationalizing her actions even as she is realizing that she is not being honest. Very well written.
Profile Image for Katie Hilton.
1,018 reviews4 followers
January 5, 2018
Torie O'Shea has a chance to establish a textile museum when the old home of an expert quilter goes on the market. The house has a story to tell, and Torie researches it. A good read.
Profile Image for Margaret.
1,147 reviews3 followers
July 23, 2019
A rose festival, a collection of old quilts, and solving a mystery almost 100 years old.
Profile Image for Dianne.
300 reviews1 follower
February 25, 2020
I really enjoyed this book...The first but not the last book that I have read of Rett Macpherson I'm definently going to look up her other books...
739 reviews2 followers
February 19, 2025
I enjoyed the history, quilts and mystery in this one.
Profile Image for Kathy Duncan.
99 reviews1 follower
September 11, 2011
Let me start by saying that I’m a fan of Rett MacPherson’s Torie O’Shea series. I’ve read almost all of the books because I am drawn to the genealogy angle even though in the early books Torie relied much too heavily on consulting family charts for her “research.” Basically, MacPherson’s tells a ripping good yarn, and Torie is quite likeable.

However, with the quilt errors in Died in the Wool I found it impossible to suspend my disbelief, especially in light of the fact that Torie, the museum curator, is also supposed to be a quilter. Torie lost me the minute she referred to the manner in which one of Glory Kendall’s quilt’s was “hemmed.” Hemmed? Seriously? Quilts are not hemmed, and every quilter knows that. Lots of non-quilters know it, too. Quilts are bound. Sometimes they are finished by lapping the back over the front, a variation on binding. Or they are birthed and finished with a knife edge. Or they are finished with prairie points. They are not hemmed. Ever. Every quilter knows that. Torie O’Shea should know that.

Then MacPherson’s stretches credulity to the limit when she attributes 50 quilts to 25 year old Glory Kendall, who also took a two year hiatus from quilting right before her death. Huh? Glory may have been a quilting wunderkind, but 50 quilts??? My mother-in-law, who was a master quilter, could hand quilt a full sized quilt in two months when she worked at it a minimum of eight to ten hours a day. Then, figure that it took about the same length of time to hand piece or appliqué the top, and you are looking at two more months for a total of four months per quilt. That is a yield of only three quilts a year. Maybe. In a good year. My great-grandmother who died at the age of 38 in 1918 produced a little more than two dozen quilts, which was considered a large yield for her short life. How’d she do it? In a hurry with huge toenail hooker stitches that would not put any of her quilts in a museum. Glory Kendall could have only produced 50 quilts if she had been born with a needle in one hand and started stitching while she was still in diapers.

What makes the novel totally implausible, however, are the poisoned basting pins lurking in Glory‘s unfinished quilt. The problem is not that the pins are poisoned, but that there are any “quilting pins” in it to begin with. Pin basting quilts in preparation for quilting is a recent development. The pins used are very strong, giant safety pins. Initially, they were used for quilts that were to be machine quilted. Now some quilters use them in hoop quilting, but many hoop quilters don’t use them because they are difficult to maneuver a hoop around. Quilts going into a frame are usually basted with huge stitches. Quilts in Glory’s time were not basted before going into a quilting frame. The lining was secured to the frame. The batting and the top were stretched over it and secured. I recall my grandmother, who was ten years younger than Glory Kendall’s character, being perplexed over the basting stitches in one of my quilts. It was not a concept she was familiar with. Regardless, no quilter would ever baste with straight pins, which is what Glory Kendall had evidently done. Why? Because getting jabbed by a straight pin hurts and gets blood on the quilt. Then there is the danger that a straight pin will get embedded in the quilt batting and will jab a loved one later. Glory Kendall would not have basted her quilt with straight pins for all these reasons…but mostly because she was not a moron.

It may seem like a small detail, but poisoning Glory’s quilting needles would have saved the story line.
Profile Image for BookNerdette.
784 reviews350 followers
November 4, 2016
My Rating : ThuMBS uP!
This is the first book I have read in a while with no exotic romantic scenes in it. So no covering the childrens eyes. Shoot some of these books have such explicit scenes – my face blushes.
My daughter was the first to read this book and she then recommended it to me. She enjoyed it so that while I was reading the book she would ask where I was in the book and what I thought so far.
I enjoyed the old house mystery in this book – it reminded me of the house mystery in “Unhallowed Ground” by “Heather Graham”. You know now that I think of it the two main characters remind me of each other.

In Unhallowed Ground, Sarah is the owner of a house with history. She is surrounded by people that she loves and they return her love with respect in a small historical town. She went away to college to become a historian.(which I think is a license for being nosy). I like that Sarah worked in a museum and spoke of the Civil War.

Now Torie, is the owner of the museum in her small historical town. She speaks of the World War I and the Civil War frequently. She too was a self proclaimed nosy historian slash detective of the town. She loves history and hates loose ends so she must find closure.

This book reminded me of a Tv show “Cold Case”. I loved it – It was a goodread!
There is an interesting story here, along the way you identify with Torie. “She wears many hats in the town” are her words at the beginning of the book. Yet women everywhere where many hats everyday – daughter, wife, mom, sister and step-daughter. This also goes with she is a business owner, and the town event coordinator.

Yes I identified with her as I am sure many of you will as well. I laughed at her talking about her kids, it struck home with me and so I could laugh. I was glad to know I am not the only over protective mom on the earth.

I will surely check out some more of Rett MacPherson’s books. She is a good author and I am blessed to have picked up this book. I also want to thank her for giving us a good clear ending.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Patricia.
453 reviews20 followers
March 12, 2008
Died In The Wool
Rett MacPherson
St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2007, 226 pps.
ISBN No. 978-0-312-36221-8


The old Kendall House in New Kassell is haunted. At least the current owner thinks that it is and wants to sell it as soon as possible. Torie O’Shea who already owns Gaheimer House decides that she will buy the Kendall House and set up a museum for quilts. Glory Kendall was famous for her quilts and evidently, many of the quilts remain in the residence.

When Torie finds out that all three of the Kendall children committed suicide she decided to investigate. Colin, the ex-sheriff and Torie’s father-in-law, wants to get into the act. Colin was in the habit of trying to keep Torie from her investigations but now that he is mayor, he is very bored and wants to be involved.

Torie does find out what happened in the Kendall home many years ago and the answer shocks everyone.

Torie and all of her friends in New Kassell make for an interesting story. There is plenty of humor involved as well as some history of quilts. This latest book where Torie manages to solve a cold, cold case is one of the best so far.


Profile Image for Vickie.
2,303 reviews6 followers
September 8, 2009
A few years ago, I tried a book from this series. And I didn't finish it and for the life of me I can't remember why. I might not have been ready for the writing or the cozy aspect or something. Glad I gave Rett MacPherson and the people of New Kassel Missouri another chance. This is a very well written book, with me trying to make time for it as often as I could. I was rather envious of Torie's smarts and stubborn need to solve the mystery of the suicides of the three siblings in the house in less than a year.
There are the quirky characters that are necessary in all cozies, the town busybody who knows best (Eleanor), town mayor (Colin), town sheriff (Mort), main character who can't help but get involved (Torie).
The mystery is old, but still compelling to the book's characters and to the reader. I wanted to know what happened to Glory Kincaid. Her story was so sad, but she had so much to live for and I wanted to know why she would commit suicide.
A wonderfully written book and I plan to look for more of the series and anything else Rett MacPherson has written.
Five past mystery compelling beans.....
534 reviews
January 23, 2012
Torie is busy, as usual. She is helping to organize a Roses weekend, even though she knows nothing about roses. Her three kids are growing fast and the two oldest are in the "teen" years. Early in the book she admits to being a bit bored and lo and behold a new project pops up. An historical house comes up for sale and Torie wants it. The house has a terrible story attached to it, all three children of the original owner committed suicide. The daughter also happens to have been a fantastic needlework artist, especially with quilts. Torie goes from wanting the house for its historical value to wanting the house for its historical value and potential use as a textile museum specializing in women's quilting and needle arts.

Of course, she also has to investigate the family and find out why three adult children committed suicide. One is easy, the youngest son came back from WWI tormented and suffering from severe post-tramatic stress (not that they knew to call it that back then). But, why the other two.

As Tori works her way through this mystery she is also slowly redefining her relationship with step-father Colin.

A most enjoyable episode in this delightful series.

Profile Image for Mary.
922 reviews38 followers
September 5, 2009
After the new not yet released book Rebel Yell that I read, this book was a nice mystery and fast to read. It was a delight to read about something different. This is not a knitting mystery like some I have been reading. Actually it has much information about handmade quilts. It is part of a series of books by this author, Rett MacPherson. They all have one main character, Torie O'Shea. She is the president of the historical society in New Kassel, Missouri. She has fun with everything that she takes on. This book is about the Kendall house a notorious address in town since three siblings in their 20s committed suicide there in the 1920s. One of the siblings, Glory, happened to be a famous quilter and Torie immediately thinks of turning the Kendall house into a textile museum. What follows next involves many townspeople and many records that have been hidden for many years. It was well worth the time to read it and now it can go back to the library and so can I. We have a brand new library that cost over 4 million to build. It is beautiful.
Profile Image for Kristen.
2,097 reviews160 followers
November 11, 2014
In the 10th installment of the Torie O'Shea series by Rett MacPherson, she'd gotten herself into a pickle this time around. She had a lot of hands, since she ran the Gaheimer House of genealogical research and handling artifacts. One of her daughters, Mary, had a rebellious streak. Plus she was in charge of the rose show, and buying the Kendall house. When Evan Merchant decided to sell his house, Torie wanted to buy it for a textile museum. From there, she decided to uncover the mystery behind the Kendall siblings "suicides" and the story behind their life. When one of her neighbors accidentally gotten "poisoned", she wanted to take a closer look behind the tragedy behind. When she finally figured it out, she would never believe the truth to shock her small town.
Profile Image for Kristin.
218 reviews
July 15, 2016
Spoilers Below!

This book is different from the other Torie O'Shea mysteries. There isn't a modern day murder or antagonist that parallels the historical mystery, which is both good and bad. I think that's a good thing because it gives the series depth instead of being a Scooby-Doo episode every time. It's a bad thing for suspense though. My curiosity kept me turning the pages, but in the end, the solution to the mystery was anticlimatic and depressing.

I did enjoy the WWI and quilting references. I wish Torie had spent more time in the haunted Kendall mansion- that felt a bit underdeveloped.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Grey853.
1,553 reviews62 followers
August 18, 2007
I didn't like this one as well as most of the series. Torie was trying to figure out if the triple suicides that occurred in a local historical house were really murders or not. In the meantime, she's having a hell of a time with her daughter Mary acting like a brat, and that got old to me. Still, like all of her books, it's an easy read with some interesting facts about how one goes about investigating historical documents. Also, she does a really great job of developing entertaining secondary characters.
Profile Image for Debra.
797 reviews14 followers
May 17, 2013
Torie gets to buy the old Kendall place with some of her newly-inherited money. The house stands aas it did decades ago, when the three Kendall siblings all committed suicide within months of each other. But, was it really suicide? Torie, fascinated with the story of Glory Kendall and her beautiful quilts, aims to find out.
Profile Image for Kay.
1,243 reviews24 followers
January 1, 2011
This is a 'cozy' little mystery that I really enjoyed. The main character is a genealogist [right up my alley] and she is out to solve crimes committed in the 1920's. A friend of mine recommended this author and now I'll be searching for her other books.
45 reviews
Want to read
May 5, 2011
I was at half price books an I was looking in the mystery section when i happened to come over this book. It looks like a very good book. I would like to read it because I like a good mystery story.

If you have a question, please leave it in the comment section.

Have a great day.
Profile Image for Destiny.
Author 7 books302 followers
January 7, 2009
I did not think I would like this...
...but I did! It was so funny and cute! The mystery was very well done. I really, really liked it and I was so surprised!
Profile Image for Kitty Tomlinson.
1,523 reviews16 followers
April 3, 2020
Torie buys the "haunted" Kendall pace in the midst of the rose show. Family that owned the house had three suicides in the house within 9 months. Interesting.
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