Organize Your Corpses by Mary Jane Maffini
My Rating: ★★★★
Charlotte Adams, a budding professional organizer, has found herself back in Woodbridge after dumping her cheating fiancé. Unable to be picky about her clients, she finds herself agreeing to take on none other than her former hellish teacher, Helen "Hellfire" Henley. After Hellfire turns up dead at the scene of her new job, Charlotte's former good friend and current enemy is determined to stick her with the murder. It is up to Charlotte to find the real killer so that she can clear her name and put her former teacher to rest.
If you're looking for a touching and light, cozy mystery, then you've come to the right place. Organize Your Corpses is a wonderful series opener that introduces us to the town and characters. Charlotte is relatable as the kind-hearted protagonist who tries to look at the best in people. She truly enjoys helping others even when they are not the nicest of people themselves. She's also an animal lover, which leads to some goofy and relatable scenarios as her adorable dogs strike. Charlotte is determined to find out what happened to Hellfire to relieve her guilt and clear her name. She's also trying to help her friends, strangers, and slowly dip her toes back into the dating world. She's a kindhearted character that I relate to. She does a lot less organizing than I expected, but it is not something that is too noticeable because the story and the characters are incredibly compelling.
Jack and Sally are Charlotte's entertaining best friends that double as her family. They are scandalized that she's working with Hellfire, the teacher who tormented majority of the students that she taught. The pair are soon sucked into the gossip and mystery that surrounds Hellfire's death and stick with Charlotte until the very end. Jack and Sally are not central characters; they are still relatable as we begin to see them more often throughout the story. I personally enjoyed Jack's antics as Charlotte reentered the dating world, and Sally's perpetual and untamed messiness. I can see why these three remain best friends and something close to a family long after their high school years.
While the characters and their lives are enjoyable, the mystery is also compelling. I still didn't put two and two together until the big reveal. I was successfully duped! I am looking forward to reading the rest of this series, and I hope to find out what happened between Charlotte and Pepper soon.
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