Weak Debut Mystery Serves as Primer on Show Dogs: More "Bitches" than the average Rap Album
Amazon says:
Banes & Noble thinks:
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Author: Laurien Berenson
Title: A Pedigree to Die For Genre: Dog mystery I guess I’m late to the party, as always. This time, it’s the Melanie Travis cozy/semi-romantic mystery series as penned by Laurien Berenson. My library has them all in ebook form (no surprise, since more than half their eBooks are romances), and they’re all about dogs – I love dogs, so I tried the first one: A Pedigree to Die For. Grade-school teacher, orphan, divorced single mother of a four-year-old, Melanie Travis has time on her hand this summer. At least she thought she would: her late father’s brother, a show-poodle breeder, died of what appeared to be a heart attack just as school let out, and his wife (Aunt Peg) is convinced he was murdered. She thinks so because their studly poodle Beau seems to have gone missing at the same time. Ultimately, Melanie finds herself guilted into helping Peg find the dog. That means lots of visits to dog shows and breeders, and therefore Melanie must be educated in the ways of high-end dog fanciers – and so must her readers. Melanie sometimes must cart around her rambunctious son, Davey, whose main purpose appears to be a distraction. She does a little sleuthing, trips over a dead body, and finds a hunk to lust after. Oh, yeah, and – of course – she finds the dog. If this were the fifth or tenth in a series, I’d give it one star. As it is, I give it two. Berenson can be forgiven for a less-than-stellar outing in her debut, though I would certainly hope for improvement – I’ll have to check… Anyway, here’s why I think A Pedigree to Die For pretty much belongs in a pooper-scooper somewhere:
The Travis series is fast approaching 20 books, with #18 scheduled for publication in mid-2015. Either Berenson got better after A Pedigree to Die For or readers of cozy mysteries don’t have very high standards. Unfortunately, on the occasions this reader has dipped into the vast ocean of the cozy subgenre, I’ve learned that the latter is probably more likely the case. all content copyright © 2001-present by scmrak
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