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DEATH TIDIES UP:A Charlotte Larue Mystery
by Barbara Colley
Kensington Books, February 2003
247 pages
$22.00
ISBN: 1575668750


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Occasionally, you read a book you wish wouldn't end. That's the way I felt about Death Tidies Up. I wanted to spend more time with the group of engaging characters -- to find out if Hank and Carol tie the knot, to learn how the often prickly relationship between Charlotte LaRue and her tenant/detective "boyfriend" Louis progresses.

Charlotte, owner of Maid-for-a-Day, a company with an upscale clientele in New Orleans Garden District, is approaching sixty and feeling very blue about her coming birthday. Her son, Hank, a successful surgeon, constantly urges her to retire, assuring her that he will take care of her. Charlotte wonders if his pressing her to retire comes from genuine concern or embarrassment that his mother is a maid.

Charlotte and her crew arrive at the soon to be opened Devilier apartments to clean in preparation for that opening. One of Charlotte's workers discovers the body of a man, dressed in boxer shorts and a purple, feathered Mardi Gras mask. When the Homicide detectives arrive, Louis recognizes the dead man as Drew Bergeron, presumed dead two years ago in the crash of his small plane.

Against her wishes (she says) Charlotte becomes involved in investigating the murder, to the dismay of Louis and her niece Judith, also a Homicide detective.

Much hinges on an automobile accident of ten years ago, when four Tulane University students, including Marian Hebert, Charlotte's client, Drew Bergeron, the dead man, and two others "borrowed" the car of a Tulane chemistry professor and ran over and killed a pedestrian. Marian was too drunk to know what happened, and the others convinced her that she had been the driver. However, the pedestrian had gotten the license plate number before his death, and the professor was put on trial and sent to prison for the incident.

There are a few problems. One is too many references to the previous book's events, confusing for one who had not read the book. Second, the Mafia connections of the developer of the Devilier apartments goes nowhere. It's also not clear why/when Drew returned to New Orleans after faking his death, nor is there any explanation of how he's managed to blackmail Marian if he is supposedly dead. Just one sentence tells us that he's been blackmailing Marian for two years. Where was he? Couldn't she have turned the tables and threatened to expose his fake death? There is also perhaps overmuch angst about Hank's father, who was killed in Vietnam before he and Charlotte could get married.

Despite those reservations, I would heartily recommend Death Tidies Up. Take a trip to New Orleans for a lot less than the plane fare.

Reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Devine, February 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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