MAID FOR MURDER: A Squeaky Clean Charlotte LaRue Mystery - Barbara Colley

From the back of the book: In New Orleans' historic Garden District, life is all about attending the right parties, impressing the right people, and making the right amount of money (a lot!). It's an attitude fifty-nine-year-old Charlotte LaRue has never really understood. She leads a quiet, simple, practical life. Business is booming at her housecleaning service, Maid - for -a - Day. Everything's perfect. Well, almost everything...

Charlotte doesn't mind polishing silver, scrubbing toilets, or dusting bookcases--but she can't stand dealing with her rich clients' dirty laundry. And when it comes to the much-talked-about Dubuisson family, there's an awful lot of it--especially since Jackson Dubuisson waas found murdered in his study.

Surrounded by possible suspects and hounded by a tenacious police detective, Charlotte wishes she could stick to her own policy of staying out of clients' personal business. Problem is, she's never been able to walk away from a mess. And this is the biggest one she's ever seen....

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I do love when I find a new-to-me series that I love. And this amateur sleuth series definitely fits that bill.

I like the stories that take place in New Orleans as they seem to always have that Gothic feel, even this cozy has that tinge of dark edge to it.

The main character, Charlotte, is an intelligent person, has her own business, wants grandchildren from her son, ties on her walking shoes each morning before it gets too hot for her 30 minute walk....and she wants to find out who killed the husband of one of her clients. This part of an amateur sleuth book can come off as forced at times, but this one didn't at all. She wants to help her client and friend by using the information she knows from the behind the scenes look she gets as a housecleaner for the rich. Information that the police can't discover, but she can to hopefully solve the mystery.

The edge of Gothic is in all of the excellently surprising dark twists that occur as the book continues. Shivery good all the way to the end. I cannot wait to read the rest of the series.

Five shivery Gothic beans......