Just finished reading...

The Busy Woman's Guide to Murder by Mary Jane Maffini.*

In the fifth book in the Charlotte Adams mystery series, our heroine is a professional organizer who has developed a reputation as an amateur sleuth after repeatedly stumbling across dead bodies.

Charlotte gets a call from Mona Pringle, a schoolmate who is now a 911 operator, upset at hearing from Serena Reading, ringleader of a group of “mean girls” who tormented their classmates all the way through school. Serena claims that she wants to arrange a reunion so that she can ask for forgiveness for her bad behaviour as a youngster. Mona doesn’t believe that Serena has changed, and tells Charlotte she’d love to see Serena dead.

Unfortunately, a few days later, a woman resembling Serena is killed in a hit-and-run accident, and Mona thinks that she may have done it. Mona believes that she suffers from multiple-personality disorder and that one of her alter-egos is responsible, which is why Mona herself doesn’t remember the incident.

Then Mona disappears, occasionally calling Charlotte from a blocked phone number and ranting about how she thinks she’s losing her mind. When other members of the mean clique start perishing in apparent accidents, Charlotte begins to suspect that Mona is right.

Bullying is not the only topical theme of this well-written book; Maffini also touches on the subject of therapy dogs, which Charlotte's two miniature dachsunds are being trained to become. Oh, and Charlotte is finally starting to get lucky in romance...

*FTC Full Disclosure: Many thanks to the publisher, who sent me a copy of the book for review purposes.