About
Reviews
Search
Submit
Home

Mystery Books for Sale

[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]


  

DEATH LOVES A MESSY DESK
by Mary Jane Maffini
Prime Crime, May 2009
296 pages
$8.50 CAD
ISBN: 0425228096


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Murder has made Charlotte Adams jumpy. An entrepreneur professional organizer should lead a quiet and orderly life, right? One that doesn't include up close and personal exposure to dead bodies. A little respite at the Volunteer Awareness Fair in the park of her sleepy home town of Woodbridge, New York seems like a safe way for Charlotte and her spoiled miniature wiener dogs to spend an afternoon.

But networking being the first commandment of self- employment, Charlotte soon finds herself offering her services to Fredelle Newhouse, a charming elderly woman whom Charlotte meets while enquiring about the Woodbridge Therapy Dogs program. Truffle and Sweet Marie are certainly adorable; and local celebrities to boot, but Charlotte may have overestimated their ability to be well behaved.

It seems Fredelle is having the same problem with one of her employees. As office manager at Quovadicon, (a large corporation owned by town founding-father Reg Van Zant), Fredelle is trying to calm her troubled staff who are complaining bitterly about the state of newcomer Barb Douglas' desk. Desperate to restore office peace without targeting the new employee, Fredelle begs Charlotte to visit and offer organization strategies to the staff. Charlotte agrees. After all, a corporate clean-up job would be a nice change of pace from organizing closets, and how dangerous could it be? Charlotte finds out soon enough, as she is almost run off the road by a dangerous driver leaving Quovadicon's parking lot. Shaken but undeterred, Charlotte meets the rest of the office staff; the young, attractive but dim receptionist, the boss's son, ( a geeky IT guy) and the hi-gloss office 'witch', who Charlotte suspects is the one behind most of the ill will. Barb, the messy desk owner is conspicuously absent.

Mary Jane Maffini is an experienced mystery writer and in this third book of the Charlotte Adams series, she has established the re-occurring characters well enough to begin to have some fun with her readers, lampooning the expected office stereotype employees .Take this exchange between Charlotte and Fredelle, for example.

(Fredelle) went back to twisting her hands. "We're all types, I suppose.... You know what? Barb Douglas is the only one who's unusual."

"In what way?"

"She's tough, but warm, effective but messy. Friendly but private. She's a whole lot of contradictions." She grimaced. "Maybe that's why I like her. She's the only one of us who seems real."

"I suppose I'm a bit of a stereotype myself" I grinned.

"I suppose you are."

That wasn't the answer I was expecting.

And that's where Mary Jane Maffini's skill as a writer lies. In a cosy series faithful to the format (female amateur sleuth, pets, small town, quirky but loyal friends) she delivers what we are NOT expecting; a carefully crafted mystery with enough red herrings to be truly satisfying and enough cliché poking to be wickedly humourous as well.

Reviewed by Merrill Young, June 2009

[ Top ]


QUICK SEARCH:

 

Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]