Organized for Homicide

Ritter Ames has built a warm, well-liked cozy series around a genuinely distinctive protagonist — a professional organizer whose vocation doubles as a personality — and the second book delivers what cozy readers want: warmth, humor, a good puzzle, and stakes that feel personal without getting dark. By book five in the series, the formula probably runs on autopilot, but for readers new to Kate McKenzie this is a comfortable, well-crafted entry point. The score reflects that cozy mysteries are a comfort read rather than a literary achievement.