Knitting Mystery

I finished the first book in the knitting mystery by Maggie Sefton. I thoroughly enjoyed it and am now enjoying the second book just as much. There's some way in mysteries, and maybe books in general, to make the characters instantly interesting and make you want to read on. I'm not sure what that is. I've started some novels (which I don't read very much) and some mysteries (which I read all the time) that I just couldn't get into. Rarely do I finish those books. It's a bummer when you get to about page 30 or 40 and realize you can't stand to read ANOTHER WORD! There are a couple mystery series where I have read several books and then one book will completely bore me and I never go back. I don't like figuring out on page 50 who committed the murder and why. It's like mystery movies on tv. I hate figuring out who dun it in the first 30 minutes. I like to be challenged and love plot twists. I don't mean that it has to be so complicated that you lose total track, but introducing a character for no apparent, or a very flimsy reason, is a dead giveaway for me.