Skip to main content

The Busy Woman's Guide to Murder - Mary Jane Maffini

 


Description

Winner of the RT Reviewers Choice Award for Best Amateur Sleuth!

Professional organizer Charlotte Adams has to clean up a mess from the past to stop a killer in the present . . .

Given the number of times she’s dialed 911 in a panic, professional organizer Charlotte Adams is more than a little startled when she answers a distress call from the 911 operator herself. Mona’s calling to alert her that the “mean girls” who terrorized her in high school are back and that she wants to wring their necks. Charlotte writes off the threat as angry exaggeration—until a woman resembling one of the mean girls is killed and Mona goes into hiding.

Worried that some lingering trauma from being bullied may have sent her friend over the edge, Charlotte decides she’ll have to investigate the murder to find out who’s behind it. But then another mean girl is run down, and she’s certain that someone from the past is settling old scores. Desperate to learn whether Mona is making her revenge fantasies come true or if there’s a vindictive killer on the loose, Charlotte will have to sort through all the clues to save her friend—and maybe her own life . . .

Organizing Tips Included!

Review

The Busy Woman’s Guide to Murder is the first book I have read by Mary Jane Maffini but this is #5 in a series.

Charlotte is a woman after my own heart, she is an organiser and that is one of the things that drew me to this book. There's even organising tips and a recipe in this book together with a lovely cover showing the two sweet dogs that Charlotte owns.

It appears as well as being a professional organiser Charlotte is somewhat of a sleuth. The book begins with Charlotte receiving a call from 911 - yes receiving.! Turns out that one of her old school friends Mona who is now a 911 operator has spotted a mean girl from their school days and proclaims that she wants to murder her. When someone who looks like the school bully turns up dead Charlotte begins to wonder if Mona has made good on her threat.

This book stands alone, but I felt I did miss out on how she is perceived in her home town by what has gone before in the previous stories. The characters took a little warming to also, because they were all new to me. Of course I enjoyed the organising parts of the book and there is even a little romance thrown into the mix too.

I liked this book but I didn't love it, so I'm giving this book 3 out of 5 stars. My thanks to netgalley for the ARC to review.


Comments

Post a Comment

Those leaving a comment on any post on this blog do so in the knowledge that their name and blog link are visible to all who visit this blog and by providing their comment they have published their own personal details on this blog and also consented to our use of that personal information for that specific purpose.

Popular posts from this blog

The C Word - An anthology of murder, mystery, death & destruction

  Great to be on the book tour today for this book today especially as 100% of all royalties from The C Word will be donated to NHS Together Charities. Description So, what do writers do during Lockdown? They create murder, mystery, death and destruction of course! The C Word is a collection of short stories collated during the COVID-19 pandemic to raise money for NHS Charities Together. A plethora of wonderful stories created by a wide variety of writers, each with their own unique style. Some you will know already and some we’ve yet to introduce you to. However, we’re sure you’ll want to hear from each and every one of them again as we leave 2020 behind us. With contributions from Steve Mosby, Sophie Hannah, Elly Griffiths, Sarah Hilary, Rob Scragg, Trevor Wood and many more. Review A great collection of short stories and certainly written for our times. Some of these stories were a little too dark for my usual reading tastes, but as they were short I stuck with them. There could...
1 comment
Read more

The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins

Description THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER. YOU DON'T KNOW HER. BUT SHE KNOWS YOU. Rear Window  meets  Gone Girl , in this exceptional and startling psychological thriller Review I must be one of the last people to read this book. I did apply for a review copy but unfortunately wasn't successful. I then waited for the book to come down in price which it didn't - so I decided I would buy it and read it straight away! I'm sure it will be a film and before anyone gives away what happens I felt I really needed to get it read, so it jumped the TBR queue. There is not much plot outline from the publisher as you can see in the description above, so there wasn't a lot to go on when I began to read the book. First of all the book jumps around date wise - past and present and also between the main characters. I did have a little trouble remembering who was who and which time frame we were in - but that soon settled down. I also had to re-read the beginning because I th...
3 comments
Read more

This Immaculate Body - Emma Van Straaten

Description ' From the very first page, Emma Van Straaten had me by the Hail Marys.  Obsessive, delusional, disastrous - but so intricately woven with heart, warmth and empathy. An impeccable debut from a rising talent ' ALICE SLATER 'An addictive deep-dive into the dark, throbbing heart of obsessive desire.  Baby Reindeer  meets  Convenience Store Woman '  KIRSTY LOGAN, author of  Now She Is Witch Alice has been cleaning Tom's flat every Wednesday for a year. With every smudge wiped from his coffee cup, every crease smoothed out in his bed, every multivitamin counted from the jar, Alice spirals deeper into infatuation. But as Alice prepares for the moment when they will finally meet face-to-face, she discovers that love might not be the cure she thought it was. . . This Immaculate Body  is a story of obsession, of the way women view the world and the ways that the world views them. As Alice frantically tries to cling to an imagined future with Tom, th...
Post a Comment
Read more