[I received an electronic review copy of this book from Netgalley and Minotaur Books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]
Summary
Jazz is an administrative assistant at Saint Catherine’s Preparatory Academy by day, but in her free time, she trains human-remains-detection dogs. And one night she’s putting Luther the German Shepherd through his paces. She has access to an abandoned building, thanks to a friend. And since her mom’s having some dental work done, she has a freshly pulled tooth that she’s hidden on the third floor of the building for Luther to find. But Luther signals a find on the first floor. And it’s the body of someone Jazz knows.
Florie Allen had been a student at St. Catherine’s. After graduation, she had gone to the North Coast School of Photography and Design. She was a gifted photographer. Why was she found dead, in goth garb, in an abandoned building?
Finding a dead body when you aren’t expecting to is a big deal, even for someone who works search and rescue with cadaver dogs. But seeing Florie’s face made this personal for Jazz. She knew this girl. And she’s determined to find out what happened to her.
Review
I read this immediately after reading another search and rescue book, and I chose to read this one because I enjoyed A Borrowing of Bones so much. I had hoped this would be just as terrific as those two titles. Unfortunately, this fell flat for me.
As an amateur sleuth/cozy mystery, this is a standard example of the genre. The mystery is solid. There are some quirks to the story to keep it interesting. The cop/former love interest didn’t really click for me, and I figured out the culprit fairly early on.
I expected more from the dog angle of the story. Luther is a borrowed dog. He’s not Jazz’s own animal, and his role in the mystery was small after the initial find. He was a reminder of a dog Jazz lost, and a prompt that she might be ready for a new dog, but that’s about it. Also, her work with dogs was a tie to her dead father, but even that story wasn’t as strong as it could have been. In and of itself, the dog pieces were a let down. But compared to the two other books I mentioned that I had in my head as I read, this was where this book really suffered. The other books have really STRONG dog characterizations. My expectations from the cover and the book description were not met on the dog front.
The human characters fell flat for me, too. I couldn’t work up much emotion for the romantic subplot. The only character piece I really liked was Jazz’s dinner with her brothers. Maybe if there were more family pieces with her mom and brothers, as well as more with her friend Sarah and her love interest – I would have enjoyed Jazz more and connected better to the story.
This is a solid choice for mystery fans who care primarily about figuring out the murder. Search and rescue fans may want to try The Lovely and the Lost or A Borrowing of Bones instead – or an Andy Carpenter mystery – if you want a strong dog-related mystery.