Title: Organize Your Corpses

Series: Charlotte Adams

By: Mary Jane Maffini   

ISBN:  9781954717237)

Website: maryjanemaffini(.)ca

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Andra                   

Summary:

Charlotte Adams is a professional organizer. Nothing is out of place in her closets-but her life’s a mess. So she’s dumped her cheating ex-fiancé, moved back home to Woodbridge, New York, and started making up to-do lists-some of which include solving the occasional murder.

Charlotte’s new job has her digging through years of accumulated junk to find some important documents. Instead she finds her client, the meanest teacher in town, dead under a pile of the debris that plagued her. And there’s no end to the list of suspects-starting with Charlotte herself. (Goodreads)

Review:

Organize Your Corpses by Mary Jane Maffini is the first book in the new Charlotte Adams series. I have touched upon other series by Ms. Maffini and have enjoyed each of those series, always meaning to continue on but when the opportunity to read this new to me series fell into my TBR pile (and became available at the library) – I could not resist ☺

In a nutshell, Charlotte Adams (professional organizer), stumbles across her newest client dead (Hellfire Henley – former teacher at St. Jude’s High School), in the Henley home that needed LOTS of organization. Due to circumstances, from a long time ago, Pepper (the lead investigator for the murder of Ms. Henley) was happy to let the clues lead to Charlotte as the murderer. So it fell upon Charlotte to hone her amateur sleuthing skills to figure out who really killed Ms. Helen Henley before she was arrested.

Some of the chapter’s opening statements are true gems.  For example, I loved the following (and I try to live by it myself):

    “Don’t let junk mail get a toehold in your home. Open your mail over the recycle bin.”

Or – I wish I could live by this one ☺

    “Organize a cleanup night once a week. Music and chocolate will make it easier.”

I found the cast of characters interesting with dimension and depth of personality – people I could relate to and sympathize with (well – maybe except for the bad guy(s)). For a first novel in the series, a wee bit more back story about the past relationship between Piper and Charlotte would have enhanced the understanding of their acrimonious relationship and how it came to be.

I did find it odd that the Piper was so well coiffured, especially for being a cop:

“When Pepper swept into the room, her makeup was fresh, every hair in place. She could have been a runway model in her cool blue suede jacket and top-stitched black skirt. Worse, she knew it and I knew she knew it and she knew I knew she knew it. “

And one thing I found endearing was the stature of Charlotte (being myself the same height ☺):

“Seconds later the massive oak door creaked open. I pulled myself up to my full height of four feet eleven and a half inches.”

All in all, a great start to the Charlotte Adams series. Cannot wait to start book two, The Cluttered Corpse.