Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Clawed - L.A. Kornetsky

Clawed
L.A. Kornetsky
Pocket Books, May 26 2015, $7.99
ISBN: 9781476750088

Having earned a reputation as part of a team of unlicensed private investigators in Seattle (see Doghouse, Collared and Fixed); Ginny Mallard is thrilled with her first out of town client who wants to use her day job skills as a concierge.  Ginny’s sleuthing partner Teddy Tonica is concerned over her propensity for trouble, but since she is not detecting he expects no problems.

As Teddy and Penny the cat remain at Mary’s where the human manages the establishment, Ginny and Georgie the shar-pei drive to Portland to meet with her new patron.  After leaving Georgie at the Pines Hotel, she continues onto her meeting with wheelchair-bound Mrs. Adaowsky.  Running late, Ginny rings the bell but no one responds.  Finding an unlocked door, Ginny cautiously enters but only a corpse greets her.  Calling 911, PPD cops arrive and tell her to go home but remain available if needed for further questioning.  Perhaps out of a sense of loyalty, Ginny feels a strong need to investigate.  The rest of the sleuthing quartet reluctantly joins her mostly to perform the impossible task of keeping Ginny out of stepping into danger.

The fourth Gin & Tonic Mystery “researchtigations” is an appealing anthropomorphist amateur sleuth that takes the heroine and her entourage out of the comfort zone of the Ballard neighborhood bar and Seattle into a “foreign” location.  The lead humans and their animal owners remain fresh protagonists while the Portland homicide case proves once again perilous.


Harriet Klausner

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