Designed to Kill

Salome Waterhouse is a feng shui practitioner. She is leading a feng shui seminar at a New Age conference at the Star Institute. Toby Ashcroft, Institute owner and former dot.com tycoon, has recently been found murdered in the pumpkin patch on the Ashcroft estate. Star Institute is also on the estate and just feet away from where he was found.Salome's cousin, Phyllis Waterhouse, is now dating Detective Gordon Child, the lead detective on the Ashcroft murder case. She asks Salmoe to look into the murder while there. Detective Child also has asperations to be Governor of California.Unbeknownst to Phyllis, Salome has begun a private study of properties where murders have been committed. She is doing this to see if there are similarities that hit at potential violence. When she has studied more properties, she plans to publish her findings. She is hopeful that this will interest law enforcement.On the way to the Star Institute, Salmoe is run off the road. When she catches a glimpse of the driver, she thinks it looks like her recently made enemy Duncan Mah but can't figure out why he'd be in California instead of DC where he lives.She later realizes at the conference, that it was Ross Penderville, one of Toby's partners in Toys for Techies (his dot.com business) that ran her off the road. He is quite chummy with Ivy Waterhouse, Toby's sister. She is in charge of the Star Institute now.I am not a fan of feng shui but I still enjoy this series. The situations that Salome finds herself in are very amusing and this is a very enjoyable series. The author definitely knows a lot about feng shui and has weaved it into the story in a delightful fashion.This is a great cozy mystery. I recommend it!

A father and his children stop at a pumpkin stand to buy an artistically carved jack-o-lantern when one of the kids discovers that a scarecrow in the grove is a dead man. His throat has been cut open and the case attracts a lot of media publicity because the victim is Toby Ashcroft, who founded his own dot.com company, which made him millions before it went bust. His sister Ivy, who inherits his whole estate, is holding a new age symposium at Star House and one of the speakers is Salome Waterhouse.From the time, she arrives on the Ashcroft estate, feng shui practitioner Salome finds very little to recommend the place. After a guest is murdered, the conference is canceled with everyone getting sent home. When the police arrest a suspect, Salome thinks they made a mistake and applying the same senses she uses in feng shui, she investigates the murder to insure the vindication of the innocent party.Denise Osborne does an incredible job showing what feng shui is (and is not) and how readers can apply the techniques, with very little effort, into their everyday lives. The protagonist combines mysticism with pragmatism, but her willingness to go one step or more beyond the norm is what readers will admire about her. This amateur sleuth tale is one book that is so entertaining it must be finished in one sitting.Harriet Klausner