Feline Fatale

Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter Mystery #9

by Linda O. Johnston

When L.A. attorney and pet-sitter Kendra Ballantyne visits the condo of her friend and fellow pet-sitter Wanda, she sets off a squabble over the building's animal policy. A week later, Wanda discovers her anti-pet board member Margaret Shiler dead in her apartment. The only witness to the crime is Lady Cuddles -- an escape artist of a cat. Margaret has enemies -- but the police have Wanda in their sights. Now Kendra needs to find a way to clear her friend's name.

Genres: Mystery, Cozy Mystery, Cozy, Animals, Cats

391 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Linda O. Johnston's first published fiction appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and won the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award for Best First Mystery Short Story of the Year. Since then, Linda has had more short stories and novellas published, plus, by the end of 2018, she will have had fifty novels published, including mysteries and romance.

Linda currently writes the Barkery and Biscuits Mysteries cozy mystery series for Midnight Ink, and also wrote the Superstition Mysteries for them, both featuring dogs. She has also written the Pet Rescue Mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime, which was a spinoff from her Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mystery series. And yes, they involved dogs, too.

Linda also writes for Harlequin Romantic Suspense, including a new miniseries about a K-9 ranch where dogs are trained. Linda additionally writes paranormal romance for Harlequin Nocturne including the Alpha Force miniseries about a covert military unit of shapeshifters--and all the werewolves also have cover dogs.

Linda, a currently inactive transactional attorney, now writes fiction full-time. She is a member of the Los Angeles chapters of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. She is also a member of Romance Writers of America, including the Los Angeles, Orange County and Santa Clarita chapters.

Reviews

[Eva · Rating 1 out of 5]

Had to give up on this one after 100 laborious pages. The characters didn't seem to be going anywhere and I found I really didn't care who murdered mean Margaret. This book might have been better if the author hadn't tried to combine a mystery with a one sided romance. The writing style wasn't my cup of tea, either. The first person narrative was fine, but I didn't need the main character telling me each time she started or ended a day in the book that she had to go about her pet sitting duties. I got that the first time. This book just didn't do anything for me.

[Melissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ok, I was hesitant to read this book. The two previous were mediocre and I "hoped" this one would be better. Up to par with the original books in the serious that made me like Kendra Ballityne, Pet-sitter. I was really really disappointed. I felt like the author was having to repeat things over and over to fill pages...like she had run out of ideas. The side "show" of her law cases, her pet-sitting, her meddling with her friends doggie daycare, and her love life were annoying at best. I got tired of the "murder magnet" being thrown in there every 15 minutes...and especially got tired of repeat descriptions (i.e. describing the conference room at the law office as the former bar in the restaurant that her boss purchased for the law office...it was already described once...it didn't need to be repeated numerous times through the book). It was just boring.

The only redeeming factor was the murder surrounding the board member of the HOA. THAT was realistic and could very well fit into today's atmosphere with HOA boards trying to meet everyone's needs (and sometimes their own personal agendas). But once the mystery was solved...it wasn't as realistic as where Ms. Johnston could have gone with it. It was just..."eh".

This is book 9 of the series and I really felt this series should have been laid to rest after book 6 or 7. Just not that into this series anymore.

[Grey853 · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is book nine in a series, which is surprising because it wasn't a great book. The writing is rather dull and the plot unrealistic. I won't be reading the rest of the series.

[Kristin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just a bad book. I suffered through it and wow I understand you like pets cats and dogs. I like them too but thats all you talk about. Story not that interesting.

[Tammy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pet sitter Kendra Ballantyne and self-proclaimed "murder magnet" helps prove her friend innocent by tracking down the clues left by a fiesty kitten. Fluff with some romance. Suggestive language rather than descriptive though.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

used the term "murder magnet" I think 129 times in this book. It was cute the first couple of times not so much by the end.

[Nancy Haddock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another outstanding book in this pet-sitting series. I have every one of these books, and the author has a spin-off series starting soon!

[Jenn · Rating 2 out of 5]

/sigh This was bad. The writing was horrible and extremely repetitive. We don't need to know the minutiae of caring for the pets from Kendra's pet-sitting job, especially when they have nothing to do with anything. Over and over we get descriptions of which pets she went to see and how she was in a hurry, but of course still gave tons of time to each pet. We get it. Kendra's ideas to resolve the french bulldog situation and the murder were both boring and lame. The former seemed extremely obvious and the latter was laughable at best.

I dislike Dante. I didn't like the previous guy either. Both were obnoxious. I didn't get Daryl in this one at all either. And why didn't Kendra ever tell Daryl what Kiki was doing?

Honestly, after the horrible last book in this series, I would have stopped reading. However, this is the last one and I had already owned it. So I'm happy to say that I'm done with this series. And the last few were so bad, this author has gone on my do not read list.

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

The blend of cozy (pet sitting) and mystery (solving a murder) with overindulgent mixes of lawyering and LA driving should give any reader claws for concern.

Linda has a real tendency to go ham on the all the moving parts here. Neither bad nor good, but certainly draining to read.

Here’s the scoop (of litter): between all the day-to-day jobbing our protagonist does (as a pet sitter AND an attorney) while solving a murder and dating a multi-millionare pet supply store magnate (formerly government operative) she also gets involved with a tiff at her friend’s doggy day care.

Paws to take all of these plots in. This is a very full and ambitious undertaking, but the mystery (while connected to the pet sitting) gets significantly little attention.

Also, style and phrasing are all over the place, but again. Why complain about such a minute detail when you could spend more time appreciating the minutiae of LA highways?

[Whi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Last in the series, it does not disappoint. While more predictable than the last one, still a good move. Dante is cleared, raised upon high and by the end of the book gives up huge gated mansion on large secluded property (location, location, location) to move in to her house. Ah, true love. Cough, cough.

The killer is Ruth (of Ruth and Teddy with the key) like we didn't see that coming.

Still nice substories and fast pace makes it good read.

[Nan Hurley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd like this series a lot more with better writing and editing.
People, places and animals described too often in the same book.
Name of some characters and places too silly; books seem like advertisements
for the fictional pet businesses.
Don't think I'll read another by this author. The stories could be so good,
but written as they are they make me gag.

[Amy DiGiulio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very fun cozy mystery

[Kayci Schmidt · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the third book I've read in this series, and none of them have been above mediocre. The author bogs down the story with unnecessary details, but the plot was very thin. The main character also has glaring commitment issues.

[Caroline · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointing. I haven't finished the book yet. Normally I read this type of book really quickly in just a couple of evenings at most but I'm going on a week with this one. I am about 75% done so don't want to give up. I like animals and I like the premise of the book but the writing is very stilted and one dimensional. As other reviewers have said we don't need to know every detail of Kendra's day. Also it is annoying to read her thoughts like "I remained in the business casual I'd worn to the office, so I at least didn't feel that I embarrassed myself as we sat in her living room . . ." Who cares?
Anyway, "disappointing" is the word for this book. It could be very good but the writing is poor. I wasn't planning on reading any more of her books but reviews of her other Kendra Ballantyne books seem to be better than this one so maybe this one is just the bad one of the bunch. I may try one other and see what I think.
Any suggestions anyone?

P.S. I finally finished the book - it didn't get any better.

[Marty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another quick read. None of this series (I think I’ve read 4 now) are great books, but they are OK when you don’t have to pay much attention to what you are reading. I’d say this is like the Ferrets book, OK but not as good as Sit, Stay or the one about the Macaw. Here, Attorney/Pet Sitter Kendra Ballantyne is substituting for a friend who is also a pet sitter. Kendra goes to a condo complex to take care of Lady Cuddles, a cute kitten, the kitten dashes out and into a neighboring apartment. When Kendra goes into the apartment to find the kitten (the door was open) she finds the owner of the apartment dead. Her pet-sitter friend is accused of the murder. To help her friend – and also to stop a “Get the Pets out” movement at the condo complex, Kendra must help solve the crime.

[Jeannie and Louis Rigod · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book but it got slightly tedious to me. It lacked the usual surprising turns. I thought Kiki was going to be a surprise but not really. The romance moved onward, although, choppily to my opinion.

It just wasn't up to the prior ones I'd read.

[Kristy Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

This would be a great story but the author over explains things too much. Like she doesn't think we can make assumptions. One example is every time someone mentions purchasing a pet care item she has to mention that it was purchased at Hot Pets. We don't need to know that information.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another good entry in the pet-sitter mysteries. I love all the animals in these stories.

[Anne-Kathrine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was ok but found some of the descriptions annoying. But will check out the next book comes out :)

[Pat · Rating 2 out of 5]

this series is getting kind of tired-nothing really new,