DEAD ON ARRIVAL
by Jackie Griffey
Five Star Publishing
295 Kennedy Memorial Drive
Waterville, ME 04901
ISBN: 9781594148460

Maggie Murphy finds herself adrift after her husband dies in a motorcycle accident. Their finances weren’t in the best of shape and Maggie needs to find a job. Maggie’s offered temporary employment at her cousin Hank’s newspaper, replacing an advice columnist who hasn’t shown up for work in a couple of days, and she takes it, hoping to find a real job in the interim. When Maggie discovers the columnist’s dead body behind the office dumpster, she meets Patrolman Joe Driver, who agrees to provide Maggie the police report of her husband’s death. Hank offers Maggie the columnist job full-time and things are looking up for her financially and personally as her relationship with Joe begins to blossom. After Maggie learns her husband may have been drugged before his accident, she begins receiving mysterious phone calls and her former house is bombed. As their relationship moves forward, Maggie and Joe sort out clues as to the deaths of her husband and the newspaper columnist, unaware her husband’s spirit is hanging around, looking out for Maggie, who is in more danger than she and Joe realize.

Griffey provides her readers with a fun romp in book one of her Joe and Maggie Mystery series. This cozy mystery is filled with humor and suspense enmeshed within a plot peppered with suspicious characters and plenty of twists and turns. Characters are warm and engaging and the plot interesting and fresh and viable.