Before I get into this week’s review, I wanted to let readers know that I will be giving a talk about cozy mysteries at the Chelsea District Library on March 10 at 6:30 p.m. It’s free, and I've done some mystery spring cleaning. I'll be giving away some of the books I’ve reviewed for Cozy Corner.

Buttons and Bones
By Monica Ferris
Hardcover, 261 pages, $24.95

“Minnesotans refer to any lake in the state as the lake. Since there are actually more than the advertised ten thousand, this can be confusing,” begins ‘Buttons and Bones’ the latest needlecraft mystery by best-selling author Monica Ferris.

Number 14 in this terrific series, it gets my vote for reader favorite to date, and since I’ve read them all, I have something with which to compare this terrific adventure set mainly on Thunder Lake in Cass County, Minn.

Fans looking for more time spent in Crewel World, Betsy Devonshire’s needlework store, might be a little disappointed that most of the action takes place in Jill and Lars Larson’s newly purchased cabin on the lake, but they’ll get their fix of the stitcher’s banter as well. This includes plenty of Godwin, everyone’s favorite store manager and Betsy’s trusty sidekick.

But how can you resist a spot where “pine trees (were) so tall their tops seem to tangle in the clouds, air cool and clean and a little sharp in the nose. Sky blue water in the lake, a deer half-seen in the woods, an eagle circling a clearing on still wings.”

And a skeleton hidden in a root cellar under really ugly linoleum that’s been pulled up to make way for new flooring during cabin renovations. But this isn't just any old skeleton; it's quite possibly the remains of a German POW dating back to World War II.

Jill and Lars had been making weekend trips to the cabin for six weeks making emergency repairs “to make the place suitable for human habitation — which meant they had driven out the spiders, squirrels, mice and a mama raccoon that had taken up residence.”

Chimneys had been plugged, the front porch propped up and they were even making progress on having electricity in the old cabin. Water, too, which was currently being drawn from a hand pump outside the cabin.

But between listening to the loons, searching for a bald eagle in the area and keeping an eye out for bear, there was this small matter of identifying the bones found with in the root cellar with canned food that was dated 1944.

Oh, and those bones? They were surrounded by the only thing the mice hadn’t eaten, some buttons.

Since there had been a German POW camp nearby — could it be the final resting place of the missing German soldier? Or was this the skeleton of a missing American solider who boarded a train to report for duty and was never seen again?

You’ll have to read this book to find out.

Sprinkled with great historical information, this book, like the previous installments, provides smiles, engaging characters, and a well woven plot. I highly recommend you go back and read the first 13 to get caught up on Betsy’s adventures since she bought Crewel World.

Lisa Allmendinger is a reporter for AnnArbor.com whose Cozy Corner book reviews appear every Wednesday. She can be reached at lisaallmendinger@annarbor.com.