Expanded Description:
(SLIGHTLY SCUFFED) In this fifth installment of the popular Dixie Hemingway mystery series, a young girl is missing. Lieutenant Guidry, the detective with whom Dixie has an on-again, off-again relationship, is trying to find the girl because she may be a material witness to a murder.
A knockout read. For anyone who loves mysteries, animals, or just plain great writing, this is a book to savor. --Laurien Berenson, author of "Doggie Day Care Murder
While picking up a recovering parrot from the vet's office, pet sitter Dixie meets Jaz, a young teen sobbing over the death of a wild rabbit hit by a car. Former law officer Dixie can't help noticing that the driver, Jaz's stepfather, is wearing a shoulder holster. When Dixie introduces Jaz to her friend Hetty, who raises puppies as future guide dogs, the two hit it off. But trouble looms when three teens follow Dixie to her client's house looking for Jaz. She convinces them she knows nothing but warns Hetty that Jaz could be big trouble. Although concerned about Jaz, she's more worried about her brother's significant other, Paco, who's been gone longer than usual on one of his undercover assignments, and her old high-school friend Maureen, who shows up in the middle of the night claiming that her husband's been kidnapped. Against her better judgment, Dixie agrees to drop off the million-dollar ransom. Once Maureen's husband is found underwater tied to an anchor, Dixie begins to have suspicions about Maureen's high-school sweetheart. Long after he's been dumped for her wealthy husband, his heart still belongs to Maureen. Will Dixie's love interest, sexy cop Lt. Guidry, save her from the dangerous doings that beckon? --Kirkus Review
The latest Dixie Hemingway mystery finds the Florida pet sitter caring for a chatty parrot and giving medication to a cranky cat. Meanwhile, Dixie cant get a mysterious, animal-loving teenage girl named Jaz out of her mind. Turns out Jaz is the only witness to a West Coast gang shooting, and she is being sequestered on Siesta Key until the trial. Certainly, the location should be safe enough, except for the unfortunate fact that a meeting of top-level drug dealers from around the country just happens to be taking place at a nearby hotel. Dixie cant leave the mystery of Jaz alone, especially after the teen disappears (despite her new career as a pet sitter, Dixie has never really lost the instincts she honed as a Sarasota cop). This continues to be a solid cozy series with a well-realized Florida setting and plenty of animal elements to satisfy pet-loving mystery readers. --Reprinted with permission of Booklist
At the start of Clements sprightly fifth Dixie Hemingway mystery (after 2009s "Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof"), the Siesta Key, Fla., pet sitter and former cop takes an instant liking to Jaz, a mixed-race pubescent girl she first meets at the vet, where Jaz has brought an injured wild rabbit. A nervous man claiming to be Jazs stepfather (he looked like a junior high school principal who had learned too late that he hated kids) admits he accidentally hit the rabbit in his car. Later, three young thugs looking for Jaz confront Dixie at the home of one of Dixies clients. Dixies homicide detective love interest, Lt. Jean-Pierre Guidry, suspects the three are connected to the knifing murder of a local elderly man, and the chase is on to find the thugs before they get to Jaz. Smooth prose, a lush background, and engaging animals in particular, Big Bubba, a talkative African gray parrot who loves to watch police shows on TV make for a fine-feathered read. --Publishers Weekly
|
