When one of her tenants turns up dead and her brother Tom, the woman's business partner, becomes the prime suspect in the crime, Annie O'Hara sets out to clear her brother's name and find the real killer, with the help of her canine sleuthing partner, Claudius. Original.
I love the idea of what Ann Campbell is trying here, but the final product is uneven. The only people who don't love dogs or antiques are probably a bunch of dirty Socialists, so let's get that out of the way now. The lead characters of Annie and Claudius are fun to read until the third chapter when yet again, Claudius misbehaves and Annie just gives up, again.
There is only one scene, right near the end, where the dog did anything useful, so I felt that he could have been a bloody cat for all the good he was otherwise, or maybe a Chihuahua. Annie has potential as a mystery solver, but she seemed to rely on luck too much. Kind of like a few of the original Nancy Drew books.
Like I said before, I love what the author is trying to do here, and I'll check out the next book in the series to see how our mismatched duo improves. I just hope she makes the dog be quiet for goodness sake.
Annie lives in New Hampshire where she has an antique store on her out of the way property as well as rents out some rooms in her house. When one of her boarders turns up dead she feels compelled to find the murderer since her brother becomes a prime suspect. Normally I love these types of books but I found some things really annoying. For one, she ends up taking her ex-sister-in-law's dog as a boarder and he misbehaves horribly. It was just completely annoying how bad he was and she fed him so much junk took. He's be huge if that was truly the case. I know, it seems like a silly thing to be bugged about but it's throughout the book. She lets people walk all over her.
Annie O'Hara is not having a good Halloween, no customers at her antique store, and still has her ex-sister-in-law's dog Claudius. Then one of her boarders is found murdered on her property in the corn maze. When her brother Tom is the number one suspect, Annie knows she has to clear his name.
This is a fun read, Annie is not the best detective, but she's determined. Claudius is amusing, even though he's completely out of control. I enjoyed it.
An OK mystery. I was annoyed by the way she let the dog tear up her house, didn't try and control it (crate the destructive thing!) This went on throughout the book and ruined it for me.