Cover: Scrub-a-Dub Dead by Barbara Colley

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Title: Barbara Colley's Charlotte LaRue Mystery Series

Cover detail: Scrub-a-Dub Dead
Scrub-a-Dub Dead

by Barbara Colley
January 2007
ISBN 0-758-20766-2

 

animation: sweeping broomMaid for a day Charlotte LaRue knows that sweeping murder under the rug is anything but simple in the Big Easy–especially since no smudge or stain is safe from her scrutiny ...

Doing a favor for a friend in need has Charlotte cleaning rooms at the New Orleans Jazzy Hotel. The historic Garden District mansion is serving as a home-away-from-home for Shreveport’s chapter of the Red Scarf Sorority, a group of socially elite women in their forties.

While picking up beautiful red silk scarves from the floor of a room she's cleaning, Charlotte is startled by the sudden arrival of its ranting and raving occupant, who insists that Charlotte ignored the Do-Not-Disturb sign on the door and threatens to have her fired. Charlotte is stunned into silence, until the Red Scarf Sorority comes to the rescue. The women manage to calm Tessa Morgan, who just had a run-in with her estranged husband’s much younger mistress Lisa—and learned that they plan to marry. After some of the women jokingly suggest making Lisa permanently disappear, Charlotte takes her leave. The situation gets even messier when Charlotte runs into an old flame and learns that he is Tessa’s stepfather—and that Lisa may be blackmailing him.

The next day, Charlotte gets back to work, only to learn that Lisa has been murdered, strangled by what could have been a red scarf. The hotel is awash in suspects, and soon Tessa is being dragged away in handcuffs. It seems Lisa had more enemies than friends, and Charlotte is convinced the police are on the wrong track with Tessa. It's time to start scouring through clues before the person who rubbed out Lisa makes a clean getaway...

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Select another book and click to find out more!

 

Death Tidies Up - Click for more!
Book 2

 

Polished Off - Click for more!
Book 3

 

Wiped Out - Click for more!
Book 4

 

Married to the Mop- Click for Details!
Book 5

Scrub-a-Dub Dead - click for details!
Book 6

 

 

Reviews for DEATH TIDIES UP


"To oblige a friend, New Orleans housecleaner Charlotte LaRue takes a temporary job at the Garden District's Jazzy Hotel, where the body count keeps rising. It's lucky that members of the Red Scarf Sorority are committed to helping each other, because Sorority president Tessa Morgan really needs help. Her accountant husband Frank is bent on marrying Lisa, his much younger inamorata, and he wants a divorce. Worse, he insists that Tessa file for the divorce. Through a series of intermediaries including his daughter Belinda and his secretary Margaret Green, he's been pressing Tessa to sign the papers while Lisa stays as a guest in the Jazzy right under the noses of the Red Scarf ladies. When Lisa ends up with a red scarf around her neck, Detectives Gavin Brown and Judith Monroe, Charlotte's niece, consider Tessa the prime suspect. But thanks to Charlotte's talent for discernment, and her much greater talent for overhearing things (some accidentally, some not), the case is soon complicated by new suspects, from Christopher, the mysterious suitor who continues to pursue Lisa even after she tells him she's engaged to a married man, to Mack Sutton, Tessa's stepfather, who turns out to have a long-standing, and surprisingly intimate, history with Charlotte. A routine mystery enlivened by romantic interludes like this one: "As far as kisses went, it was more of a friendly type of kiss as opposed to the passionate type."" ~ Kirkus Reviews

"Charlotte is at her best whether she is cleaning, encountering a former beau turned suspect, or just sleuthing ... series fans will appreciate the heroine’s latest escapades as she scrubs for clues, not accepting that the president of the Red Scarf Sorority would commit such a dumb crime —even in passion—without at least cleaning the crime scene." ~Harriet Klausner

"Catching up with Charlotte LaRue is like spending time with an old friend, albeit one usually in the mix of a murder mystery. The mystery in this enjoyable page-turner takes a while to get started, but that’s all the more time to learn what’s been going on with the characters, especially retired detective Louis Thibodeaux, since her last adventure.

"This outing, set in post-Katrina New Orleans, has Charlotte putting her Maid-for-a-Day company in the hands of her assistant so that she can fill in for a friend at the Jazzy Hotel. There, Charlotte has a run-in with an upset Tessa Morgan, whose husband is having an affair with a younger woman, Lisa. Not surprisingly, there is more to Lisa’s story than originally thought. When she’s murdered and the clues point to Tessa, the wife is quickly arrested.

"But something doesn’t feel right to Charlotte, so she takes an extra look around the hotel rooms she’s cleaning. When trouble comes calling (literally), Charlotte keeps asking herself why she didn’t mind her own business." ~RT BookClub, Sandra Garcia-Myers

"As a favor to a friend, New Orleans cleaning lady extraordinaire Charlotte LaRue (Married to the Mop) is working at the Jazzy Hotel in the Garden District where she hears much too much about the personal lives of the Red Scarf Sorority, a group staying at the hotel. Then a young woman is murdered, and Charlotte believes that the police are looking at the wrong suspect.

"In her sixth series title, Colley has not lost her flair for throwing Charlotte into dangerous situations. For cozy fans. Colley lives in New Orleans." ~ Library Journal

A great read!

"Charlotte is very likeable, she reminds me of Jessica Fletcher from Murder She Wrote. She's a nice lady who struggles with minding her own business and doing the right thing.

"Charlotte is a big fan of mysteries and crime dramas. She has learned how to carefully and methodically collect clues to piece together the evidence. Her family and friends are torn between being proud of Charlotte's amateur detective skills and worrying for her safety.

"I read this when we had a NO power for three days caused by a winter storm in the Northwest. This was a great way to spend the time since the book really engages the reader and the story keeps moving forward. I was able to guess some things, but there are enough twists to give it a surprise ending." ~ Armchair Interviews

"I love Charlotte. I wish she’d come clean my house! I enjoyed this book set in a hotel. It gave lots of new characters for the story. The author did a great job of creating a web of intrigue in the middle of the murder. There were plenty of twists and turns as she eliminated suspects. I highly recommend this book and series."
~ Dawn Dowdle, MysteryLoversCorner

"This is the sixth and latest entry in the Charlotte Larue, Maid-For-A-Day mystery series and it's as enjoyable as all of the others. Though this time many of the regular maids are on vacation, a few of Charlotte's friends and relatives are in attendance and this keeps the story going strongly.

"Charlotte is still the very moral, strongly opinionated woman she has been in the past. She does snoop, but she is against the deed and will rationalize the need for it. After all, to save an innocent from jail and to put away a murderer, one must do what one must do.

"Because the series is set in New Orleans, author Barbara Colley manages to permit the readers to understand the feelings of the people who reside there, both the ones who lost their homes, and others, like Charlotte, whose houses still stand, but who still have the emotional scars that goes with the destruction of your much beloved hometown.

"SCRUB-A-DUB DEAD manages to be a well-written mystery and a first-rate cozy. The solution to the case was well put together and the likable and realistic emotions and the relationships between the characters in the book makes the readers yearn for yet another installment. I know I will be on the lookout for the next in this wonderful series." ~Sharon Katz, Reviewing the Evidence

More Reviews Coming Soon!

 

 

 


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