Book 18, 2022

Murder at Pooch Park by Cindy Bell

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I finished reading Murder at Pooch Park by Cindy Bell last night. It's the first of the "Wagging Tail" cozy mystery series, and it's told in first-person point of view by Nikki Green, dog walker extraordinaire.

While walking dogs one morning, Nikki stumbles across the body of her friend, Chelsea, in the park where she likes to let the dogs burn off some energy. As if that wasn't bad enough, the detective in charge of the case, Quinn, doesn't seem to remember Nikki, even though he was instrumental in an event from her teen years. Nikki doesn't know who would have wanted to kill Chelsea, but when she begins asking questions, she finds out she didn't know Chelsea as well as she thought she did. As the official investigation stalls, Nikki refuses to give up on the case. She wants justice for Chelsea, and she's determined to find out who killed her.

This story was inane, for lack of a better word. The protagonist had no real reason to investigate. Sure, Nikki and Chelsea were friends, but they weren't besties, and I got the impression they hadn't known one another long. Second, Nikki took some extremely foolish risks in the course of her sleuthing, including ineptly following three surly, burly men to see where they were headed. It got worse. ( Spoilers )

Favorite lines:
♥ "Some people just have no class even if they have plenty of money."
♥ "You don't have to be an artist to see something magical in life. Everything around us is so beautiful when we take the time to truly see it."

The story was sloppy and would have benefited from both editing and polish. Giving it a generous two stars.