chuckdolton's review against another edition
4.0
The killer became very obvious near the end. Enjoyed reading.
nitabee's review against another edition
2.0
Still not loving this series but I can't pinpoint exactly why. Izzy is fine enough. We have a bit of a love triangle going on . I like Rena ok, Izzy's best friend, and Ingrid, the crusty older lady who helped put Izzy back together after Izzy's fiance, Casey, left her for a younger woman. In this book, Ingrid has been reunited with her former love whose name I believe was Harvey (I'm writing this review like a week after I finished reading), and they're planning a wedding. There's a murder, of course, . I'm undecided if I'll continue on with the series.
Spoiler
with Sean, her HS BFF whose heart was crushed when Izzy rejected him, and Jack, a copSpoiler
of an out-of-town reporter named Daniel who was renting out the second floor of Izzy's house. I thought the mystery was fairly obvious - Daniel had had an affair with a local journalist named Ama and impregnated her. The problem? Ama was married to a jealous man named Steve. Daniel came to town, reunited with Ama, learned about his child, and you can guess what happened nextdollycas's review against another edition
5.0
Dollycas’s Thoughts
I reviewed the first book in this series, Paws For Murder, last week and like I told you then us Dolly’s have to stick together. So you can bet I was hanging on every word of this story.
I have fallen hard for Aunt Dolly, Izzy, Rena, Packer, Jinx, Val and all the rest of the human and animal characters too. I am amazed at how quickly I have become invested in the residents of Merryville, Minnesota. I like that some of them are from or have spent time in my home state of Wisconsin. Knox has created wonderful characters for us to love or love to hate. All the dialogue sounds like home and I can easily picture the settings because we have visited Minnesota several times. I am intrigued by the men in Izzy’s life as well, romance may be on the horizon for her and I don’t know which man I would choose for her yet.
Annie Knox writes a fun and entertaining mystery with plenty of misdirection to keep us readers on our toes. You have to keep your eyes on both the two-legged and four-legged creatures in this story and that just added to my enjoyment.
The author includes great descriptions of the pet apparel for sale at Trendy Tails if you are inclined to dress you pets up everyday or for special occasions, these will give you all kinds of ideas.
This book was a pure pleasure to read. I had a smile on my face from beginning to end. Collared For Murder will be out next summer and I am so ready for my next visit to Merryville.
alesia_charles's review against another edition
2.0
Or maybe 2.5 stars. There were things I liked about this book: one of the main subplots was about late-middle-aged love and marriage (a nice change); it doesn't take itself too seriously; and the sleuth's investigations didn't wander too far into the foolhardy. There was a very good and reasonable confrontation scene at the end, with the plot tightening up and coming together to lead to it pretty well (though I'd guessed it was one or the other of them much earlier).
On the down side, I had far more trouble than I expected taking the subplot of a "doggie wedding" seriously. I mean, it was right there in the book description. I didn't realize I would be so reflexively boggled by the concept that my mind bounced off the book every time it came up.
In a related matter, I could not (and cannot) believe that there's sufficient market in a small town to support a full-time "pet boutique" business (much less a pet "spa" that's also a competitor). This is a drawback to studying economics that I never anticipated, believe me. Since Izzy (the sleuth) naturally spends a lot of time at her business - well, it was a struggle to overlook that problem.
As if these personal reader's foibles weren't enough, I think that overall the book suffered more than a little from the fact that the reader didn't even meet the victim before he died. Maybe he appeared in the first book, but I haven't read that one. This made it rather hard to get invested in the finding of his murderer, especially since the throwing of suspicion on the the person we're supposed to care about felt contrived to me.
And being reminded of Carl Hiaasen's Hoot partway through didn't help. Most books suffer by comparison with his.
Received through Goodreads Giveaways in exchange for an honest review. Which is probably pretty useless to most people, being so very idiosyncratic, but so it goes.
On the down side, I had far more trouble than I expected taking the subplot of a "doggie wedding" seriously. I mean, it was right there in the book description. I didn't realize I would be so reflexively boggled by the concept that my mind bounced off the book every time it came up.
In a related matter, I could not (and cannot) believe that there's sufficient market in a small town to support a full-time "pet boutique" business (much less a pet "spa" that's also a competitor). This is a drawback to studying economics that I never anticipated, believe me. Since Izzy (the sleuth) naturally spends a lot of time at her business - well, it was a struggle to overlook that problem.
As if these personal reader's foibles weren't enough, I think that overall the book suffered more than a little from the fact that the reader didn't even meet the victim before he died. Maybe he appeared in the first book, but I haven't read that one. This made it rather hard to get invested in the finding of his murderer, especially since the throwing of suspicion on the the person we're supposed to care about felt contrived to me.
And being reminded of Carl Hiaasen's Hoot partway through didn't help. Most books suffer by comparison with his.
Received through Goodreads Giveaways in exchange for an honest review. Which is probably pretty useless to most people, being so very idiosyncratic, but so it goes.
murderbydeath's review
4.0
A very good book 2 in a strong series with well-developed, intelligent characters. I didn't like the ultimate attitude concerning endangered species (let's just move 'em) - I closed the book feeling vaguely pissed off. But I loved the date scene between Izzy and Jack: wouldn't it be a refreshing twist to an old cliche if Izzy didn't end up with her childhood friend?
Full review: http://jenn.booklikes.com/post/1044621/groomedformurder
Full review: http://jenn.booklikes.com/post/1044621/groomedformurder
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