Death Tidies Up

Charlotte LaRue Mystery #2

by Barbara Colley

Between running her maid service (the successful Maid-for-a-Day) and fretting about her upcoming birthday (the dreaded 6-0), Charlotte LaRue doesn't have much time for gossip. But New Orleans's latest dust-up is hard to ignore--especially since it involves Marian Hebert, one of Charlotte's new clients. Turns out Marian's now-deceased husband once worked for his best friend Drew Bergeron's real-estate agency--and when the business deal soured, so did the friendship. The whole sordid affair came to an unfortunate end when Drew died in a plane crash--and Bill Hebert was killed in what some people insist on calling an accident. Others are convinced it was murder.



Pretty juicy stuff, right? Charlotte doesn't think so. She's trying her best to forget all the rumors--she has more important things to worry about these days. Like vacuuming, window-washing. . .and her new job at the old Devilier house. The gorgeous historic home is being transformed into luxury apartments, and Maid-for-a-Day is in charge of the cleanup. Should be easy enough, Charlotte thinks--until she finds a barely-cold corpse in one of the closets.



The police are sure the dead man is Drew Bergeron. Funny, considering Drew supposedly died years ago--and Charlotte distinctly remembers attending his funeral. Talk about messy. Suddenly all that gossip about the Heberts and Bergerons seems incredibly timely--and Charlotte wishes she'd listened just a little bit closer. . .



With old rivalries flaring--and past secrets suddenly back in the present--Charlotte has a feeling this job will involve some real dirty work. Good thing she has a knack for cleaning up crimes. . .

Genres: Mystery, Cozy, Cozy Mystery, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Ebooks

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published March 13, 2003

About the author

Barbara Colley is an award-winning author whose books have been published in sixteen foreign languages. A native of Louisiana, she lives with her family in a suburb of New Orleans. Besides writing and sharing her stories, she loves strolling through the historical New Orleans French Quarter and Garden District, which inspired the setting for her Charlotte La Rue mystery series.

Reviews

[Angela (Kentuckybooklover) Brocato-Skaggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

In looking for a book with an orange cover I found this book on my kindle. I don't remember buying it. I'm glad I did though. Charlotte LaRue is fiesty and finds herself in interesting places.

Death Tidies Up is book 2 in the series and Charlotte is fretting about turning 60. Her son wants her to retire from her cleaning business but she refuses. During a job, her crew finds a body but the confusing thing is Charlotte has already attended his funeral once two years prior. Can Charlotte find out the truth and stay out of hot water?

This series seems like it will be a good one. It impressed me that even though I have not read book one I had no issues keeping up. There was no foul language and no sex scenes. Just murder.

If you are looking for a virtual visit to NOLA this is a series for you. This book would also fit the mature sleuth category for future bingo games.

[✨ Gramy ✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

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This woman sleuth is intelligent, resourceful, and uses her southern charm to ellicit desireable information. Her exploits in investigating the dead boy in the clost very entertaining.

It is a clean read, stands on its own from the series, and cleans up with an HEA.

It wasn't outstanding, but I really liked it. This series is well worth reading. I highly recommend it.

[Jennifer]

Second in series. Had not read the first, but that did not deter my understanding of who the characters were. See my review in the Cozy Bingo game (Team 2).

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: between running Maid-for-a-Day, and other things, Charlotte doesn't have time even for gossip. Then she finds a body in a closet.

[Shelley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read the first and second books back to back. I rather enjoyed #1, Maid For Murder. I wish I could say the same for #2, Death Tidies Up. I found Charlotte tiresome especially when she kept going on and on about her age and is she going senile etc? In this book she celebrates her 60th birthday.

The story takes place in New Orlean's historic Garden District. Charlotte owns her own cleaning business called Maid-for-a-Day. She cleans homes of well to do families. Her son, Hank, is a lawyer and her niece, Judith is a police officer. Hawk wants his mother to retire, she "works too hard". He wants to look after her, but what would she do all day with herself? I love the way Judith calls her aunt, Auntie.

As I had predicted in book one, I knew who the next family would be murdered.

Charlotte's new client, Marian Hebert has two sons. Her late husband once worked for his best friend Drew Bergerson's real estate agency. When the business deal soured, so did their friendship. Then Drew died in a plane crash and Bill Hebert was killed in an accident.

Marian Hebert also hires Charlotte to clean the luxury apartments before they go on the market, but Charlotte comes across a dead man in the closet. That man looks kinda familiar to Charlotte until she learns it was Drew Bergeron, and she attended his funeral already a few years before.

I was disappointed in this Death Tidies Up, it got on my nerves. Even though I have book 3 sitting in my bookshelf, I chose to not continue on for now. I really hope when I do decide to get back into this series (I have books 3 through 5) they will get better again.

[Rebecca Cecil · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cute little read. Charlotte LaRue ruins a maid service. She house a new job at Devilier house a beautiful historic home being transformed into luxury apartments. Her company Maid For a Day is in charge of the clean up. What should have been a easy job turned out not so easy when Charlotte finds a corpse in the closet.
I enjoyed this cute mystery it has a few surprises. I love mystery of all kinds even these cute quirky ones. They are a nice break to my from regular mysteries. This was my first book by this author, now looking forward for some more books by her.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book up until the solving of the mystery. The ending was terrible. Sam was apparently a killer but also a family man but also trying to be a lothario but also best friends and cared about the two kids and called 911 to save Charlotte. Then we never hear about him again after he’s presumably arrested. It didn’t work for me.

[Narcissa Yuni · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was so cozy. the murder part of the mystery wasn’t too gruesome, and the general atmosphere was pretty slow paced. i really enjoyed charlotte and her pov. this was a really refreshing mystery! i thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Patricia Booth]

Cute New Orleans read.

[Liz Corbett · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
Cute read! Didn’t realize it was the second in a series when I started it.

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Such a disappointment. The first third of the book I spent counting how many times Ms Colley used the same word in a paragraph and spent little time following the very thin plotline. By the middle of the book, I mind blanked because I remember neither multiple word usage nor a plotline. By the end, whole paragraphs could have been removed and the overall storyline, what there was of it, could have held. As I said, the book was a letdown.

Begrudging her upcoming sixtieth birthday, Charlotte LaRue, owner of Maid For A Day, grabs her cleaning supplies and heads out to her next major project, an older home in the Garden District of New Orleans that has been changed into individual apartments. When she hears the screams of one of her employees, she runs to aid only to discover a body in the closet dressed in boxers and a mardi gras mask.

Not that that scene was strange enough, but under the mask was a man that was declared dead two years prior. How can that be? Charlotte’s company rules of not messing in her client’s business and her need to meddle conflict as she helps her niece, the police detective, and Louis her next-door neighbor solve this mystery.

I recall the first book, Maid for Murder being much better so I am not sure what went wrong. The storyline was too slow and meandering with no real direction until the last 15 percent of the book where presto-chango, the murderer was discovered and they all lived happily ever after.

I hope that the remaining books in this series are better, but I was so turned off by the book that I do not think I will be rushing to the next in the series.

[Spuddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

#2 Charlotte LaRue mystery featuring the owner of her own cleaning business, Maid-For-A-Day, in New Orleans. Charlotte’s sixtieth birthday is fast approaching and she’s feeling a bit down in the dumps about it. Soon she is wrapped up in another murder mystery though, tied to one of her clients, and to Charlotte herself as one of her employees discovers a dead body in a Mardi Gras mask in the closet of a newly-renovated apartment building that Maid-For-A-Day has the contract to clean. The dead body turns out to be that of Drew Bergeron, whom everyone thought had died two years earlier, and Charlotte’s new tenant Louis Robicheaux and her niece Judith end up as lead detectives on the case again.

I didn’t like this book as well as the first one—something was just ‘off’ about it, with Charlotte’s frequent worries about her aging, her health, and about her friends and family getting to be a bit annoying. I also wanted to wring her parakeet’s neck by the end of the book; it seems every time Charlotte walked in the door there was a description of Sweety’s welcoming antics.

I like Charlotte in some ways, but she’s just way too nosy despite her frequently saying that she detests gossip and seems much too opinionated about her friends and family’s life choices for my taste. Everything was just a little too pat, too many coincidences, and the mystery in this one was not a strong one.

[Jenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm sure I probably got this one free for the Kindle. I read free mysteries and romance on my Kindle at the gym to pass the time. This one sounded okay, even though it was the second in a series I hadn't read, so I started it.

It was readable. I enjoyed some of it. The main character is an older lady who is a snooze-fest. She's extremely judgemental and fussy and proclaims how much she hates gossip and such every 5 minutes, but she's super nosy. I didn't particularly care about any of these characters and you could see the ending coming a mile away. It took at least a quarter of the book before anything actually happened. Then it was wrapped up with about 10% left to go where they droned on about stupid stuff no one cares about. Something evidently big happened in the first book, but unlike most series books, they don't do any kind of mini recap to get new readers up to date. I might read another of these if I got it free, but it's not high up on my list at all.

There's also a very glaring error at one point when Charlotte, in her mind, puts Sam's first name with Marian's last name, though she's been saying Sam Johnson (I think that was his last time) the entire time.

[Ginnie Grant · Rating 3 out of 5]

First off, let me just say that I really do love Charlotte LaRue as a character. she's smart, sassy, fun, principled and never lets anything get her down. I can only hope to be something like her when i'm sixty. This book had a terribly slow start that didn't seem relevant and the middle dragged. It did pick up and had a really good ending but I felt Ms Colley was scrambling to fit everything in the last few chapters that should have been better distributed throughout the whole book. It did make me smile how she gave a nod to my favorite cozy mystery author Joanne Fluke by Charlotte and Bitsy mentioning that they were both reading "The Blueberry muffin murder". what I am hoping happens as the series progresses is to see more of Miss Charlotte's family relationships progress and I hope she sees a lot more of Louis!

[Lynne Tull · Rating 2 out of 5]

I may try one more book of this series. I think this book was a little better than the last one, but the jury's still out. I am getting a little tired of cleaning house and all of the "hon" this and "no, hon" that. I do wish we would move on from the expression "...thank you very much". I found myself skipping over a few parts that had a little too much detail. Also, there were a couple attempts to try educate me. I don't mind the education. I just don't like it to be so obvious.

[Devi · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is my 2nd book to give up after 2 chapters. But since I cannot sleep not knowing who did it - this is after all a who-done-it story - I read the last four chapters just to find out. Trust me, this book is too boring to be a mystery/murder/crime book, whatever it is trying to be one. I'm an avid Christie reader and I have to say Miss Marple was not a bore. So I'm not really sure what this book is trying to do.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, every once in a while you just need pure escape in a quick to read, I can solve that, mode with a main character who you can enjoy and relate to and that's when you can turn to Colley's Charlotte LaRue series. This maid of New Orleans (bad historical pun, but apt description) has yet to fail for cozy reading.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book..This is the 1st book I've read by this author,but will be getting the others..Charlotte is the main character who runs a cleaning service and gets involved in a murder case..She's also turning 60 and reflecting on life..She's very kind and very involved with family and friends..Highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a cosy mystery..

[Bea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun cozy mystery. Charlotte LaRue owns a maid service and gets tangled up in the lives of people she cares about, her own standards, memories and dreams of what life was/might be, and terror of getting old! A wonderful read.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just couldn't get into this book. Will try one more in the series before I give up on it.

[Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I usually would not read books like this but I have grown to love Charlotte La Rue.. I can not wait to read #3!

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cozies are my new favorite read.... they are the perfect thing to take on a trip.... not too much thinking involved... good story... quick read.... this one fills all the needs!

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cozy mystery in New Orleans.

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. It seems there are others before this one in the series, but I didn't miss much. If there are more after this one I'll probably read them. Off I go to Amazon to check into it!

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay. Not the best cozy I've read but not the worst.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the first book I read of the series. It took a bit for me to get into it, but then I enjoyed the light read. I was a little out of the loop at the end, but liked it just the same.

[Erin · Rating 1 out of 5]

It was free on amazon...and now I know why.

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fluffy mind candy

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

alot of typos- I think they forgot to edit this book!