Virtual Tour for Scheduled to Death by Mary Feliz

Welcome to my stop on the Virtual Tour, presented by Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours, for Scheduled to Death by Mary Feliz.  Please leave a comment or question for Mary to let her know you stopped by.   You may also follow all of the stops on the tour by clicking on the banner above.  Good Luck!

Scheduled to Death

By Mary Feliz

A Maggie McDonald Mystery, Book 2

Publisher: Lyrical Underground

Release Date: January 17, 2017

Genre: Cozy Mystery
Length:  236 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1601836663
ASIN: B01EQ2N1QM

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N

About the book:

Professional organizer Maggie McDonald has a knack for cleaning up other people’s messes. So when the fiancée of her latest client turns up dead, it’s up to her to sort through the untidy list of suspects and identify the real killer.

Maggie McDonald is hoping to raise the profile of her new Orchard View organizing business via her first high-profile client. Professor Lincoln Sinclair may be up for a Nobel Prize, but he’s hopeless when it comes to organizing anything other than his thoughts. For an academic, he’s also amassed more than his share of enemies. When Sinclair’s fiancée is found dead on the floor of his home laboratory—electrocuted in a puddle of water—Maggie takes on the added task of finding the woman’s murderer. To do so, she’ll have to outmaneuver the suspicious, obnoxious police investigator she’s nicknamed “Detective Awful” before a shadowy figure can check off the first item on their personal to-do list—Kill Maggie McDonald.

About the Author

Mary Feliz has lived in five states and two countries but calls Silicon Valley home. Traveling to other areas of the United States, she’s frequently reminded that what seems normal in the high-tech heartland can seem decidedly odd to the rest of the country. A big fan of irony, serendipity, diversity, and quirky intelligence tempered with gentle humor, Mary strives to bring these elements into her writing, although her characters tend to take these elements to a whole new level. She’s a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and National Association of Professional Organizers. Mary is a Smith College graduate with a degree in Sociology. She lives in Northern California with her husband, near the homes of their two adult offspring. Visit Mary online at MaryFeliz.com, or follow her on Twitter @MaryFelizAuthor.

You can win your own copy! Giveaway – On February 10, the author will be giving away five ebook editions of both books to randomly selected names on my newsletter list. Here is the link where your followers can sign up for the newsletter – http://www.maryfeliz.com/newsletter/

 I have to admit that I have a bit of an “acquisition” problem when it comes to books, makeup and clothes, so I jumped at the chance to read and review Scheduled to Death, the second Maggie McDonald Mystery by Mary Feliz, hoping to pick up some organizational tips while enjoying a cozy mystery.  Colorful characters and a fairly good mystery kept me reading from start to finish.  While this is a book which can be read and enjoyed on its own, I recommend reading the first book in the series, An Address to Die For, for a better connection with the primary characters.

Ms. Feliz does a good job introducing readers to her main character, Maggie McDonald, a professional organizer, at the start of this story.  Hired to organize Stanford Professor Lincoln Sinclair’s Victorian home and office, Maggie quickly finds herself involved in solving a murder. Something she’s had a little bit of experience with in the past.  I liked Maggie’s character right from the start; she’s smart, dependable and really cares about her family and her friends.  She’s also a great judge of character. 

The secondary characters are well developed and I especially enjoyed getting to know Maggie’s husband Max better along with Detectives Paolo Bianchi and Jason Mueller, who manages to provide help while out on a medical leave.  Drawn into solving the mystery of who killed Lincoln Sinclair’s fiancée, Maggie and a group of her friends, are force to deal with a strange garden manager, foster children, graduate students and college professors while uncovering secrets and working around an incompetent cop placed in their path.  There are plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader guessing about the killer’s identity and the reason behind the murder.

Will Maggie be able to figure out who killed Lincoln’s fiancée?  Will her business be helped or hindered by her involvement in the investigation?  And will Maggie be able to manage her business, her family and a murder investigation at the same time? You’ll have to read Scheduled to Death to find out, I enjoyed it and look forward to reading the next book in the series, Dead Storage, when it comes out.

My Rating:  4 out of 5 Crowns