Book Review: BURIED IN CLUTTER (Tina Tales Mysteries Book #2) by Jan Christensen

Synopsis (from AMAZON):
Someone screams inside the old, neglected Victorian house next door, and Tina Shaw runs to find out what’s wrong. A woman bursts out the door saying her aunt is dead. Murdered. Tina notices that the hallway is piled high with cartons. Later when the woman begs her to help clean up the house, Tina hesitates. She’s just begun a career as a professional organizer, though, and her hands itch to start on a new job.

As Tina sifts through the clutter, she finds clues the murdered woman left behind. She learns the woman was rich, and all her relatives are suspects. But when the will is read, Tina and her family also become suspects. After her mother is arrested, Tina begins investigating in earnest with the help of her boyfriend, Hank (the Hunk). Will she find out who the killer is before her own life is put in danger? 

Review
Tina is making a career change and leaving behind psychology practice to help people organize their lives. Once again, she takes on the job of de-cluttering the house of a hoarder.  But this time, a focus is on finding the clues to solve the murder of the strange neighbor whose cookies she remembers.  And this time, she and her family members are suspects.  As she sorts and boxes, she is watched by Mickey, a policeman, while other members of the force and Hank work on other parts of the house.  She discovers a scam and a couple obviously preying on the older woman's sympathies for their own means.  Hank is concerned for her safety and she keeps stumbling on family secrets. Where will it all lead? 

I enjoyed reading more about Tina and her internal professional conflicts, family dynamics, and, yes, the budding romance.  Christensen keeps you guessing until the end but the ending makes perfect sense.  Stayed up a little too late to finish this one - a sign of good book!  I hope there is a book #3!

This is the second in the Tina Tales series.  ORGANIZED TO DEATH was reviewed on this blog on May 12, 2014.  

AMAZON

Review: ORGANIZED TO DEATH (Tina Tales) by Jan Christenson

Synopsis:

Back in her hometown of Newport, RI, Tina Shaw, twenty-nine, is picking up the pieces of her shattered life. She begins her first job as a professional organizer in a house filled with cardboard boxes and clutter, only to discover a dead body in an eerily neat baby nursery. She fears this career move may be a short one until the handsome but spooky new doctor persuades her to reorganize his office left in disarray by the former physician.

Ignoring the doctor's obvious interest in her, Tina begins seeing her former boyfriend. When he protests against her new profession, she realizes what a control freak he is. Then there's another old flame who is making her hotter by the minute. As she works through the office clutter, she learns the doctor has a possible motive for the killing. But when someone else is shot, the doctor has a solid alibi--Tina herself. Drawn unwillingly into the case, she searches for answers as her list of suspects multiplies. When the killer begins targeting Tina and her friends, she works harder to learn the murderer’s identity before someone else is found dead.

Review:

Tina leaves her job as a psychologist and returns home with her own secrets; she has decided to help people by organizing them rather than therapy. Her first client seems to have a problem with hoarding and that would have been overwhelming enough, but then she and her client go into the only neat room in the house and a dead body.  Small town secrets abound, starting with the "lunch bunch" mothers who meet once a month and are overprotective of their daughters.  Then, of course there's the daughters, two of whom are now dead, one of whom is Tina.  Admidst the murder and attempted murder, Tina is a magnet for attractive men.  There's Brandon, her old beau, who is comfortable; Hank who is exciting, mysterious and intense; and the new doctor, who doesn't quite fit and seems more than a little off.  In truth, there are a lot of things that seem a bit off, the real mystery being the event or reason for the odd combinations of events.  An interesting read and hard to put down.  This is the 3rd novel by Jan Christensen.  Hopefully there will be a second Tina tale in the future.

Learn more at her website: www.janchristensen.com