Witty Little Knitter

So I said halfway through this book that it might become one of my favourite Lady Daisy mysteries and now that I finished it I can defenitely say: Yes it is one of Dunn's best books, I've read, so far. The side-characters were really well written this time, especially in the first books they often tended to be a bit black and white or rather either very very likeable or totaly unlikeable. In this book you also get characters inbetween. Thankfully it also seems that Dunn has finally stopped introducing basically all characters at once. I see that with these relatively short books you can't wait too long with the introductions but it got kind of riddiculous when Daisy always just sat somewhere and then people dropped in one after the other and told her their life-stories. It already got much better in the last few books and now it seems to be gone completely.So all in all a very compelling mystery and Daisy and Alec continue to stay charming ;) Just two things bothered me a bit: I really didn't get why she felt the need to include the other ship in distress at the end. Wasn't a homicidal maniac on board enough excitement for the voyage? Did the ship they were traveling on really need to assist another ship? It just felt like it was just included to add a few more pages.The other thing was just a bit weird: Daisy meets a woman on the ship who knows much about herbs and herbal remedies and also calls herself a witch. That itself is not bad, as she's not in anyway portrayed bad or stereotypical. But almost always she's referred to in the book, she is not called by her name but 'the witch'. It's full of sentences like "When going upstairs Daisy met the witch." or "The witch was already sitting at the table." I just didn't get why. No matter as what you see a witch, as a job, a religion or as a hobby, you wouldn't always call another character 'The mechanic' or write 'The stamp-collector was already waiting for her.' I just didn't quite get why.