Book 48, 2018

[chez_jae]

Dial Meow for Murder by Bethany Blake

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Last night, I finished reading Dial Meow for Murder by Bethany Blake. It's the second in her "Lucky Paws Petsitting" mystery series, featuring pet sitter and girl Friday, Daphne Templeton.

On the evening of a fund-raiser for a local pet rescue, Daphne finds the hostess dead in her bathtub. Being an animal lover, Daphne takes charge of the woman's spirited Persian kitten. Since her mother was in the house at the time, Daphne is afraid she may be a suspect; therefore, she begins asking around in hopes of finding someone with a more plausible reason to have killed Lillian. Daphne's efforts draw the ire of detective Jonathan Black, but she isn't about to give up, not even when someone seems to be stalking her.

At the reading of Lillian's will, Daphne learns that she inherited not only the kitten, Tinks, but also a painting that is worth six figures. In the meantime, her sorta-kinda boyfriend, Dylan, wants to have a serious talk, she's wondering what Jonathan's ex is doing in town, and she's also been strong-armed into volunteering to dress as a creepy clown for a haunted hayride. In other words, life as normal for Daphne.

I love Daphne; she's a hoot! Other characters are done well, even the pets. The plot moved along at a good pace, and the mystery kept me guessing.

Favorite lines:
♦ The last thing I needed was to make a bigger spectacle of myself by catching on fire.
♦ "I wouldn't be able to even think about the wallpaper if there was a dead person in the tub."
♦ "While I banish the image of you crawling into a trash bin in a clown suit, please tell me that you didn't take anything."
♦ Shaking off the image of (the murderer) and I getting into a pillow fight to the death, I asked, "Why?"

Pillow fights to the death should totally be a thing!

Excellent story overall. Five stars:

*****