Catwalk (Animals in Focus Mystery)

by Sheila Webster Boneham

[EBookObsessed]

This series reminds me a little of the Mattie Winston Mysteries by Annelise Ryan. Janet MacPhail and her search and rescue dog, Jay, as well as her boyfriend Tom Saunders are once again stuck in the middle of a murder investigation. No one is going to miss this victim, but more than likely the killer is going to be a friend of Janet and Tom’s.

Janet MacPhail and her Australian Shepherd, Jay, and once again embroiled in a not really that exciting murder investigation, all while balancing her relationship with fellow dog lover, Prof. Tom Saunders.

Janet’s friend Alberta from the Dog Dayz training center is looking for Janet’s help. Alberta believes someone abducted her cat and she wants Jay’s clever nose to find her. Jay manages to track down Alberta’s cat, but she hasn’t been kidnapped. She slipped into the neighbor’s shed to give birth to her three little kittens. Unfortunately, the neighbor isn’t a big fan of cats in general, let alone Alberta and her crusade to trap, neuter and release the feral cats which are living on the property that Charles Rasmussen and his development company want to turn into condos.

There’s no question after spending five minutes in the story with Charles Rasmussen, who is our eventual victim, that he’s an ass, no one likes him and that the list of suspects is huge, including Alberta, Charles’s abused wife, Charles’s tortured and infirmed father-in-law, people who he has forced out of properties he wanted, local environmentalists and just about everyone in town. So actually it’s a bit grasping at straws when they question Janet for the murder just because he was trying to press charges for trespassing. Rescuing a lost cat wouldn’t have equated to a life sentence or even a fine so why she should be on the list of suspects let alone be concerned about proving her innocence is the real mystery.

Other than the murder, we go about Janet’s life with her while she spends time with her dog, Jay, and cat, Leo, and her friend, Tom. Janet is over 50 so Tom’s status is a little in question since boyfriend is a little childish. Janet is trying to determine if she wants to take the next step and move in together when she overhears Tom making plans to vaccinate his dog so he can leave the country. She knows he was thinking of a sabbatical but she doesn’t know where that will leave her relationship. Tom tries to talk to Janet, but she appears to have a habit of zoning out in the middle of conversations and being too embarrassed to mention she wasn’t actually listening to you, so she jumps to a lot of conclusions.

We meet all of Janet and Tom’s pet owning friends and attend an agility trial with them, including something I never heard of before – cat agility. Janet is training her cat in agility as well as her Australian Shepherd.

If there was ever a book that I should have written or that was written specifically for me, this would be it.

I competed in agility for several years with my American Eskimo Dogs. My girls and I spent many lovely days (and many rain drenched, muddy weekends) competing in agility. This was mostly pre-children. Winter and Dakotah both have been gone a few years now and I have started training my 2 year old Australian Shepherd, Bowen. We haven’t gone out to competitions yet since time and money are limited for Mommy Funtime, but I don’t doubt he will be quite successful once we get in the ring. Well, that is if my daughter lets me have a turn. Now that he knows the basic equipment, she takes over my classes. What I am impressed with is that my dog understands that he needs to work slower with her than he does with me.

But even with my love of the topic, and I am one of the few who will get all the inside comments like recognizing the other competitors by their dogs names but not theirs, the story line wasn’t that exciting to grasp anyone’s attention who isn’t reading it because it was about a murder at an agility competition. I know lots of people who would enjoy this, but it is more geared to a very specific group of my friends who compete in obedience, agility and tracking. I don’t know that this has such a general audience appeal.

I did have one issue with her writing style. On several occasions she gives you a hint of something near the end of a chapter, and then the next chapter you started somewhere else. For example, when Alberta wanted Janet to read a letter she received and was very angry about. She hands the letter to Janet who couldn’t believe it…and then the next scene started the next day and we had to backtrack to the information in the letter. Doing it once as a way to build suspense is fine, but she did it at least three times just in the beginning of the book. She also had a habit of making Janet comment to herself like a schizophrenic — We can manage this, snarked Janet demon. He knows that, countered good Janet. He wants to help, not take over. I just found it odd to Jekyl and Hyde your inner monologue.

Received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.