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In short: A pet detective gets murdered in the adorable little animal-friendly small town of Wagtail and everybody—all 5,698 characters—is a suspect! So I might’ve exaggerated about the number of suspects, but dang, there’s a LOT of people and pets to sort out in this confusing mess of a mystery. It’s up to the local innkeeper Holly to sort through the massive list of suspects because you know the local law enforcement ain’t worth  hill of beans in these cozy mysteries!

What I liked: I quite enjoyed the cute little touristy small town setting with all the pooch-themed shops and eateries. If this place existed in real life, I’d certainly put it on the ol’ bucket list. I also love, love, love everything about this cover. The adorable Jack Russell throwing off the side-eye at a hoity-toity society event just cracks me up!

What didn’t work: Judging by the hundreds of rave reviews on Goodreads, I’m the odd girl out here, but this book just didn’t do it for me. There’s just way, way, way too many names to keep up with, and I found myself re-reading pages and sifting back to previous chapters to figure out who’s who. First you have a group of women in the WAG high society club, then you have the assorted townies—and then if that’s not enough, there’s a bunch of animal names thrown in the mix! The multitude of red herrings confused matters even more! I know that’s the whole point of a red herring, but the tangled web of family feuds and romantic trysts were a little much for my tired, overworked brain. I thought cozy mysteries were supposed to be easy, relaxing reads!

Favorite characters: Of course, Twinkletoes and Trixie are my most favorite characters—Fritz the loyal German Shepherd comes in as a close second! As for the humans, I most enjoyed Aunt Birdie because, quite frankly, she’s not boring. Sure Grandma Oma and Holly are sweet and all… like a bland vanilla ice cream cone. Aunt Biride’s kind of a tool, but she seems to have a soft underbelly and an interesting backstory.

Overall: If you love formulaic cozy mysteries with sweet Mary Sue sleuths and furry, heroic sidekicks, this book’s for you. Just keep a notepad handy so you can keep the characters and complicated storylines straight!