Edited to Death [Hardcover]

Linda Lee Peterson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2005

If Maggie Fiori doesn't have it all, she's got plenty: A handsome attorney husband, two beautiful sons, and a comfortable life in Oakland, just across the bridge from Everybody's Favorite City. Add in a love-lorn Scandinavian au pair to help with child care, and writing assignments from lox to literature at San Francisco's chi-chi city magazine, Small Town, and it all adds up to a pretty sweet deal. But Maggie's smart mouth and everyday life as a loving wife and mother camouflage a secret. The camouflage comes off after murder strikes the magazine, and Maggie is in the investigation up to her Emerald City eyeballs.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"If you are a Susan Isaacs fan, you will love ... journalist-cum-sleuth, Maggie Fiori." -- Jacqueline Winspear, author, Maisie Dobbs

"Strong focus, admirable prose, and a nifty story line recommend this first novel." -- Library Journal, January 2005

About the Author

Linda Lee Peterson is the co-founder of a marketing communications firm with offices in the San Francisco Bay Area and Philadelphia. This is her first novel. She and her husband, a judge, live in Northern California.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 226 pages
• Publisher: 21st-Century Publishing; First Edition edition (January 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0972262431
• ISBN-13: 978-0972262439
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,904,187 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A lot more than just a good plot, February 14, 2005

By 

Steve Kentworth - See all my reviews

This review is from: Edited to Death (Hardcover)

Edited to Death is a wonderful mystery. I was almost going to say "wonderful first mystery" but that would make it seem less than it is. It's just plain good whether it's a first or tenth book.

The mystery itself is intriguing, complex, and satisfying. And it's got a good contemporary angle. But for my money, it's everything else that makes this book worth reading. The sleuth is sort of like Miss Marple if she had grown up in California in the 60s, went to UC Berkeley or Stanford, married a lawyer, and balanced a part-time career as a writer with being a wife and mother. Maggie Fiori is smart and witty-often too smart and witty for her own good. And she's got flaws, so she's not just out there solving other people's mysteries. I liked her most of the time, but there were times when I wanted to slap her and tell her to just calm down and be nice, instead of being so self-satisfied and pig-headed.

The other characters are all fascinating, especially three women, who don't all have major roles. Peterson has a real eye for detail and idiosyncrasy-as well as over-the-top-ness. An aging opera singer who worries about her "instrument" (her voice), a red-head who seems like she's caught between a Playboy shoot and a film noir, and a really nasty ex-wife (actually, I can't remember whether she's ex- or not). I wouldn't mind seeing more of these three in further mysteries about Maggie Fiori (I assume there will be more).

Finally, if you pay attention to this novel, you learn a hell of a lot of trivia, of all kinds, that's completely fascinating, like what "tete-a-beche" is and why anyone cares.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I couldn't put it down!, November 22, 2005

By 

Golightly (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Edited to Death (Hardcover)

Edited to Death is a wonderful read and an intriguing mystery. Linda Peterson has created a smart, sassy, and extremely appealing character with Maggie Fiore--someone I wanted to hang out with and who I missed when I wasn't reading the book. The other characters are well delevoped too, and while they're not all necessarily likable, I felt I really got to know them. I was kept in suspense right up until the end...all the complex pieces of the mystery came together with a twist I never expected. I can't wait for Maggie's return in the next installment!

5.0 out of 5 stars Maggie Fiori is a female sleuth you should get to know!, September 12, 2011

By 

BECKY HAMMOND - See all my reviews

This review is from: Edited to Death (Hardcover)

If you can relate to an intelligent, spunky professional woman turned sleuth with a smart mouth, lapses of good judgement and the complications of life with an ice hockey playing lawyer husband, two little boys, dead lover and his male and female playmates and new job as the editor of a San Francisco magazine -- this book is for you. Richly described with lots of estoric references to music, art, literature and medicine, this book is fun for trivia fans and mystery buffs alike. I found myself looking for the next installment of the adverntures of Maggie Fiori the moment I turned the last page.