Mystery — Gone to the Dogs

What a love­ly group of book cov­ers! It is tru­ly amaz­ing what vari­ety authors come up with, all to enter­tain their read­ers. Not only did these books sat­is­fy my desire to fol­low a mys­tery to a sat­is­fy­ing con­clu­sion, they each had an unusu­al attrac­tion, AND taught me some­thing I did­n’t know. Now, that’s quite an accom­plish­ment when you think about it.

So, what did I par­tic­u­lar­ly like about To Kill A Labrador?  I loved the voice, which means, I loved the way the author put the words togeth­er. Her style made me turn the first page. (Okay, I read it on my Kin­dle, so I did­n’t actu­al­ly turn a page.) It kept me so involved in read­ing that I fin­ished it it two evenings. What did I learn? Answer — a whole lot about ser­vice dogs for vet­er­ans. And how did all that hap­pen? The main char­ac­ter (and ama­teur sleuth) trains ser­vice dogs. When she is called in to take care of Bud­dy (the dog), she dis­cov­ers his vet­er­an own­er is assumed guilty of mur­der until proven inno­cent — and she does some­thing about it.

Oh Bits, Grum­bles From The Grave was quite unusu­al. It is his­tor­i­cal fiction—heavy on the fic­tion, I’d say. Some­how, the sto­ry gal­loped along with sud­den addi­tions of oth­er ele­ments. The read­er does­n’t know what the title refers to until at least half way through. But I do like books that sur­prise me. Let’s see, there were view­points from the hero­ine who was a recent col­lege grad­u­ate hired on a news­pa­per, a Ger­man spy, a gravedig­ger, a woman, before and after she became a ghost, a cou­ple more as well, I believe. And, how about a haunt­ed mir­ror? Read­abil­i­ty and the unex­pect­ed lured me into this book and kept me read­ing to the end. What did I learn? Fan­ta­sy, his­to­ry, and mys­tery can co-exist.

Girl in the Shad­ows was a fun, quick read. I espe­cial­ly liked the main char­ac­ter, Abby, a girl with a super mem­o­ry who takes a temp sec­re­tary job. I liked her actions and reac­tions, and her take-hold atti­tude, as she quick­ly dis­cov­ered she liked her new job—no, she loved inves­tiga­tive work. She also took  over her boss’s trusty bea­gle Chewie. Hi-jinx ensue! This book was short and fun­ny. Can’t beat that com­bi­na­tion. Guess I did­n’t real­ly learn any­thing new, except, per­haps, that short books are sell­ing and get­ting nice reviews. (Okay, as an author, that’s some­thing to con­sid­er when I’m strug­gling to com­plete 70,000 or more words.)

This Dog for Hire was an excel­lent intro to behind-the-scenes shenani­gans at a dog show. Rachael is the inves­ti­ga­tor, check­ing out those shenani­gans with her pit bull Dash. They’re a team, and one can always agree that if you want a dog to pro­tect you, a pit bull can’t be beat.  At times I was a bit con­fused, which is usu­al­ly good for a mys­tery. This book kept me engrossed, with a mys­tery to solve and a main char­ac­ter who was (at least in this sto­ry) a bit too sus­pi­cious for her own good.

These are all mys­ter­ies I’ve read and enjoyed. I did­n’t give any of them five stars, but they came close. The unique take-away for dif­fer­ent ones? One was the voice, one was sur­prise ele­ments, one was the main char­ac­ter, and the last took sus­pi­cion to a new lev­el. I learned some­thing dif­fer­ent from each one as well: the very dif­fer­ent “occu­pa­tions” for dogs, and four dif­fer­ent approach­es to the dog­gie mystery.

Now I have a ques­tion or two: If mys­ter­ies are your thing, do you enjoy a vari­ety which might include ani­mals as main char­ac­ters? Do you have a favorite mys­tery that includes dogs? Okay, last one: Tell me, quick! What book is it? (I love a good mys­tery, and a per­son­al rec­om­men­da­tion is super.)