Pumpkin Spice Puppy

Melanie Travis Canine Mystery

By Laurien Berenson     

ISBN: 9781496750648

Website: laurienberenson.com

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Andra                   

Summary:

Between taking care of her family and assorted Standard Poodles, Melanie is also working as a special needs tutor for Howard Academy, a private school in Greenwich, where her younger son attends kindergarten. This year, the headmaster has come up with an idea for a school fundraiser. All students will participate in a town-wide treasure hunt, with grades competing against each other.

Tokens shaped like pumpkin spice muffins have been hidden in downtown stores. Students will scramble to collect as many as they can in exchange for prizes. At first all goes smoothly, and the uptick in foot traffic to the stores is a win-win…Until the pet supply shop owner lodges a complaint. When Melanie stops by to smooth things over, she instead finds the man dead, a knife in his back, and his loyal, ever-vigilant Chow Chow locked in the storeroom.

Over the headmaster’s objections, Melanie is once again drawn into an investigation. It doesn’t take her long to gather a list of suspects, from neighbors balking about the number of rescue Chows the man was fostering in his home, to the landlord who’d filed an eviction notice against him, to the bitter ex-wife who is happy he’s gone. With the fundraiser soon drawing to a close and celebrations imminent, Melanie will have to follow every clue—before the biggest prize is staying alive…

Review:

Finally, having read Pumpkin Spice Puppy I have begun reading the Melanie Travis Canine Mystery series by Laurien Berenson. Beginning at book 30 has not been a problem, other than to say to myself – why did I wait so long to read one of Ms. Berenson’s books???

What attracted me first was the cover of the book! The Chow Chow puppy is SO cute. Got me going down a rabbit hole looking at pictures of this breed of dog. That was fun. And then I began reading the story…

Melanie Travis is first and foremost a mom to a kindergartener who attends Howard Academy (and another son as well). The school has come up with the following fundraiser -> the students will partake in a town-wide treasure hunt where they will pick up tokens. Everything is going very well, until one town merchant lodges a complaint. And then before Melanie is able to have a talk with him to smooth things over, she discovers him dead! During Melanie’s inquiries, we learn of many potential suspects for the murder! 

Seems there are many potential suspects…unhappy neighbours, an ex-wife who is NOT happy with him, and his adult daughter to name a few. And Melanie must sift through the list of people to determine whodunit! There are a number of twists and turns but in the end – we are lead to the killer (whom I had an inkling of who it might be 🙂 ) through the sleuthing skills of Melanie.

In my younger years, I too was involved in dog shows, though with an American cocker spaniel and not Standard Poodles. So when the story started with Davey entered to handle a Standard Poodle owned by Aug Peg in a dog show – I was intrigued and pulled into the storytelling. It brought back some very fond memories.

It was an enjoyable read and a pleasure to get to know Melanie, Kevin (five-year-old son), Davey (15-year-old son), Sam (Melanie’s husband), their five dogs (4 black Standard Poodles and the 5th – Bud – a small spotted dog of unknown origin) and of course Aunt Peg! What a family.

I found this book a good example of show casing Ms. Berenson’s ability to write a good, engaging cozy mystery. This is the first book I have read in the Melanie Travis series. I am completely smitten with this series now. So much so that the entire series is on my TBR pile 🙂 !