Search the Products Store
Search the Book Store
clog dancing Book Store Index
Privacy Policy
Copyright Notice
Home
|
|
Organize Your Corpses (A Charlotte Adams Mystery) |
Author: Mary Jane Maffini
Published: 2007-05-01 |
List price: $6.99
Our price: $6.99
|
Usually ships in 24 hours
As of: January 08th, 2009 11:30:57 AM
|
|
|
Customer comments on this selection.
 A new series kicks off with a couple of unexpected and entertaining twists
Mary Jane Maffini is a well-establish writer of mysteries in Canadian settings. This book, the first of a new series, and set in a small American town, appears to be her novelistic attempt to escape what is sometimes called "the beaver pile" up here in the Frozen North. On the basis of this outing, I think Ms. Maffini has made a successful transition--and good luck to her!
Ms. Maffini is no Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers, but she quite obviously is a competent and professional purveyor of cozy mysteries. She knows her business and she has cobbled together a perfectly acceptable and breezy book. She is also intimately familiar with the conventions of the cozy mystery, so familiar, in fact, that she makes riffs on those conventions and, more importantly, on the expectations of her readers.
"Organize Your Corpses" is the sort of book for which a published spoiler would, for once, be an actual disaster. I shall say no more than that I was surprised by not just one but two of Ms. Maffini's characters. What happens is not so shocking it itself, but so highly uncharacteristic of cozy mysteries that I was caught off guard. I admit that the rabbits that come out of Maffini's authorial hat are not half so astonishing as the one in "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd," but they'll do--oh, yes, they'll do.
Speaking of riffs on cozy mystery conventions, and since the subject has already come up in an earlier Amazon review, it might be noted that a common convention in American cozies is that the always intrepid heroine has a close-by a female friend who was her best buddy from their schooldays. In a nice riff on the tradition and expectation, just such a character appears in this book--but she and the heroine have had a full-fledged falling out. They can't stand each other. And it is this very mutual loathing that the author cleverly uses to support even hoarier cozy mystery convention: the imbecilic refusal of the heroine to call the cops when she should be doing exactly that.
(I see that at least one reader is agitated by the fact that author Maffini never explains how or why the two former best friends became enemies. The second book of the series is soon to be published. I, for one, hope that this particular mystery becomes a running thread, never to be solved.)
"Organize Your Corpses" is a perfectly satisfactory cozy mystery of the American variety--not a masterpiece, but well-constructed and entertaining. On that basis, I'd normally give it four stars. But owing to the unexpected turns inserted into the stereotyped material, I'll knock that up to five.
My intro to this new author has been......
a wonderful one while enjoying meeting all the characters in the first volume of her new series. Since other reviewers have explained the plot, etc., I would just like to say that I enjoyed this book to the extent that I will soon be the proud owner of all this author's other titles (not necessarily an easy-accomplished feat!).
Am I looking forward to volume 2--you bet!!
(Other favorite authors include: Carolyn Haines, Lee Child, Michele Martinez, Libby Hellman, Evan Marshall, Jan Burke,(just to name a few).
 You Have to Pay Attention
Charlotte Adams has returned to her hometown of Woodbridge, New York as a professional organizer. She has received a call of an old teacher known widely as Hellfire Henley. When Charlotte's returns to the Henley Mansion, Hellfire is found dead under a mound of old newspapers and Charlotte is drawn into a confusing and dangerous who-done-it, and being the prime suspect, she must clear herself before she becomes the next victim.
A larger cast of characters that gets a little twisty at times, you have to pay closer attention than most cozy mysteries.
Fun New Series
This was a fun new series with an interesting cast of characters and a plot that left you guessing until the end.
I only had two complaints -- there were a number of errors in the book (mainly words being left out of sentences and spelling), and I don't feel like the animosity between Charlotte and Pepper was really ever explained. But I guess that's for later books.
Looking forward to the next installment!
Highly Enjoyable Cozy
This was the first book I have read by this author - I found it to be a very pleasant, well-"organized" cozy mystery. The protagonist was likeable, the characters varied, and it had a plot which clipped along at a reasonable pace. While I am not the least bit organized, nor can I even a imagine a person whose closets or home have nothing out of place, Charlotte Adams was a fun new character for me, and I hope to see more of her in the future !! Perhaps I can learn a few things...
|
|
Our clog dancing book picks:
|
|
Search the clog dancing Products Store
LCS Amazon Store 2.5 © 2009
|