Customer Reviews

Death Loves a Messy Desk (Charlotte Adams)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Charlotte Adams is a control freak, a busybody, and a compulsive organizer who likes to neaten up everything she can get her hands on. While these qualities may make her somewhat irritating to her friends, they also make her a stellar professional organizer and de-clutterer. They also get her in over her head when she is hired by the office manager of Quovadicon to clean up the desk of an employee whose messiness is leading the rest of the office into chaos. Charlotte discovers is that Barb Douglas's messy desk is the least of the company's problems though, as a flaky receptionist, a viperous instigator, and an asocial son of the boss all run rampant under the ineffectual leadership of Fredelle Newhouse. When Charlotte is nearly run off the road and Barb disappears Charlotte is unable to prevent herself from investigating despite the many warnings of her friends and her own post-traumatic stress from previous incidents. Not helping matters is that Charlotte finds herself isolated from her fellow childhood misfits who are all involved in their own relationships, including her best friend Jack who ignores her and whose new girlfriend sends a spike into Charlotte's heart. Between unsuccessfully training her miniature wiener dogs to become therapy dogs, juggling her other organizing jobs, and avoiding getting arrested (again) by the police, Charlotte barely has time to discover why Barb has mysteriously disappeared and what connection she may have had with a murdered man.

Mary Jane Maffini continues to entertain readers in her third mystery featuring Charlotte Adams. This is a mystery full of quirky, humorous, and engaging characters, many of whom are as frustrated with Charlotte's investigative compulsion as she is with it herself. Charlotte is quite aware that she often acts rashly and unwisely, but her need to tidy up loose ends and retain control override all saner impulses. The close circle of friends that Charlotte has reunited with in the small Woodbridge town of 25,000 is what makes her so likable, and at times, vulnerable. This is a fun read for anyone who has ever been trapped in an office with crazy coworkers or who simply enjoys light-hearted, character-driven mysteries.

Maffini delivers another solid mystery featuring Charlotte Adams, professional organizer. In this installment, Charlotte is hired by an office manager to organize a co-worker's terrifying messy desk. However, even before Charlotte can dive in, office politics ignite in full force and the occupant of the messy desk goes missing. Charlotte joins forces with Detective Tierney to solve the mystery (which kept me turning pages until midnight to learn whodunnit).

Maffini weaves two subplots in with the main mystery: Charlote training her mischievous daschunds to be service dogs and a trend of surprising aloofness from her best friend and neighbor, Jack.

I enjoyed reading about Charlotte's successes and failures in training Truffle and Sweet Marie. Anyone who has tried to train a playful dog will relate to Charlotte's challenges.

I didn't enjoy the plotline where Jack behaves like a jerk. Perhaps Maffini was trying to create sexual tension between Charlotte and Jack; however, for me, it made a previously likeable character into a jerk who dumps his friend for a bimbo. I'm bummed because it will be difficult for me to like reading about Jack in Maffini's future books.

All in all, a good cozy mystery, perfect for whiling away a lazy Saturday. If you liked Maffini's previous mysteries, "Death Loves a Messy Desk" will not disappoint.

Personal organizer Charlotte Adams has been hired to help clean up one of the messiest desks in business history. At least, that's the situation according to Fredelle Newhouse, the office manager at Quovadicon. Barb Douglas just doesn't seem to know how her disorder is affecting the rest of the staff. Charlotte decides to take the job, and she hopes to solve the problem without getting involved in office politics. But that's not likely: not with Dyan George making waves, Robbie Van Zandt mooning over and defending Barb's reputation, Autumn being the whifftiest receptionist ever, and Fredelle flitting around and trying to play the placating mother figure. In the meantime, Barb has disappeared under questionable circumstances. And before Charlotte can launch a plan of attack, she finds herself too close to what quickly becomes a dangerous murder investigation. Can she trust ANYONE at Quovadicon?

Charlotte is a generally likable protagonist who lives with her companionable dachshunds, Truffle and Sweet Marie. But her organizational mind-set spills over into her personal life, and she can't seem to mind her own business. She dispenses advice constantly to her friends, sometimes without thinking. It's a good thing she has a set of VERY understanding friends who are forgiving of her behavior -- especially since she has to rely on them to take care of her when her impromptu detecting gets out of hand.

Every desk I have ever worked at has been considered messy by some (!), so I felt as if I HAD to read this book. Fortunately for me, no one has been murdered around any of them. Yet. Author Maffini thoughtfully heads each chapter with some organizational tips from Charlotte's notebook. They're good suggestions; but they probably won't change my work habits. Though this is Book Three in the series, it's the first one I've read. And I liked it enough to want to go back and read the first two. A entertaining read featuring a somewhat flawed but realistic main character.

This is a good, cozy mystery. Small town setting with dogs. Light and interesting, Maffini writes a great book. :) Good traveling mystery or good to read while sitting with a friend in the hospital. Very enjoyable.

Charlotte Adams has a real knack for getting into murder....it is almost like she is accident prone! But these are light mysteries, easy to read, enjoyable, can be solved before the end of the book if you follow the clues very carefully. And, because they are not gruesome, you can read them at bedtime for relaxation. I love her little organizing tips sprinkled throughout the books.Organize Your Corpses (A Charlotte Adams Mystery)

After reading and enjoying the first two books in the series I was happy to see this one and it was pretty good. However I do have three complaints. First: The main character comes off as rather abraisive in this book and I'm wondering why. I liked her better in the first two. Second: Charlotte's best bud Jack snubbing her(Again--Why?) doesn't make for a "cozy" read. Third: When Charlotte ends up in the hospital, she struggles to a pay phone via wheelchair to make sure her customers are informed of her not being able to keep their appointments; but never does she ask anyone to go and take care of her dogs! They're home alone and need to be let out to go potty and possibly need fed as well. I was yelling at Charlotte through her hospital stay "What about the dogs?!" It was so distracting that I almost stopped caring entirely about who done it or Charlotte's head wound. I'll probably read #4 if there is one but unless Charolotte shapes up into a better dog owner it may be the last Maffini book for me.

First Line: As the flash went off in my face, I yelped and dove for cover.

Despite professional organizer Charlotte Adams' rather high profile in a couple of recent murders, she's got a waiting list of customers who are in desperate need of her expertise. When there's a cancellation, Charlotte agrees to meet a woman who has a problem with a co-worker's extremely messy desk. In no time flat, the cluttered co-worker goes missing, and Charlotte once again is at the mercy of media cameramen as she tries to solve the mystery.

I have to admit that those cameramen are one of the reasons why I enjoy this series. Charlotte and cameras go together as well as pancakes and jalapeños. If there's any way to get an unflattering photo of her to show to all the viewers, those cameramen will, and it's become a running joke throughout the series.

Another reason why I like this series is that Maffini doesn't bury the organizing under the murder. Each chapter begins with an organizing tip, and Charlotte comes up with a brilliant plan to streamline an office and make everyone more productive.

Charlotte does have her faults. One character describes her (to her face) as "a bit bossy, a bit uptight, kind of vain about your appearance. Maybe shallow." Charlotte is all those things... well, maybe not the shallow part... but she is still a likable character and one worth following through a series. She's so earnest that I just have to root for her through all her pratfalls and triumphs.

Although the behavior of one of the office workers didn't fool me, I still didn't figure out what was going on. I look forward to the next book in the series where I hope I'll get to see Truffle and Sweet Marie train to be therapy dogs.

I read the reviews of this entry in the cozy mystery subcategory and thought it would provide an enjoyable couple of hours. It didn't. Partly that's because it just wasn't a good fit for me, an unorganized/disorganized attention deficit sort. The organizing hints heading each chapter drove me nuts from the beginning. No doubt that contributed to the overall assessment below.

A cozy mystery relies more on personalities and atmosphere than on suspence. I don't think this entry wins on either. It doesn't provide very much in suspence, either. It drags.

Charlotte Adams struck me as an obsessive-compulsive, high maintenance diva. She's full of advice, bossy, self-centered, and very lucky to have devoted friends. She shows little enough reluctance to use them and tell as much or as little as she thinks she can get away with in pursuit of her aims. Her professional skills don't show up much in the detecting, nor in the background, as she does very little within her profession in this installment (I haven't read the others).

The mystery characters are poorly developed stereotypes - the office manager who is so concerned about taking care of her people that she allows office manuevering to turn poisonous, a lady dragon set on taking over said office, the mouse-like son of a hero and business "great," and the supposedly dumbbell receptionist.

The dogs are cute.

The sleuth in this story soon realizes that the messy desk is just the tip of the iceberg in a story with lots of unanswered questions. Good plot.

This is my 3rd book in the Charlotte Adams series. This author already made my fave list with her first 2 books, so I was looking forward to getting reacquainted with Charlotte's team.

The aspects of this book that I enjoy the most are Mona, the busybody emergency operator, Ramona-the librarian with know how, Rose & Lilith (from the first 2 books), Jack-neighbor and friend, and believe it or not-Pepper & Nick.

Pepper, Charlotte's long time friend from school days but not so much at the present, is enduring a difficult pregnancy but seems to be easier going on Charlotte. (compared to the previous books). At first I found it a bit hard to swallow that such an efficient police woman could put up with a dunce/playboy of a husband...that is until I realized I know a couple just like that. In this book their realtionship evolves to another level and they are actually communicating.

That's more than I can say for Charlotte and Jack. I like the two of them and I was happy about how they came together at the end of the book. I did not enjoy Jack being a do nothing guy when it came to ignoring Charlotte and having the wool pulled over his eyes by some new fling. Not so much.

I loved how charlotte was actually trying to train her Dachshunds, Truffle & Sweet Marie. I have 2 Dachshunds and they know only a very few commands...if they choose to even listen to them. Love those dogs.

I missed not having Rose & Lilith in the story and hope they come back with the next book. (which I already have in my tbr stack)

All in all I found this 3rd addition to the charlotte Adams series a bit of a slow started compared to the first 2 books...but the last several chapters were terrific. All loose ends were tied nicely in place in Maffini's usual chaotic fashion. I did have my eye on the murderer before hand, but that's ok.

I will continue reading this series and recommend it to cozy readers.
Ellen