CLUES FROM THE CANINES

In Dziomba’s cozy mystery series starter, an animal shelter worker looks into the sudden and mysterious death of a shelter volunteer with whom she was romantically involved.

Lily Dreyfus has two rescue pups, Boone and Crockett, at home, and she loves working at Bassettville, New Jersey’s Forever Friends Animal Shelter. She’s a bit socially awkward and more comfortable chatting with the shelter dogs and cats than she is with many of the humans in her life. When she receives a request from the state police to take in Burrow, a beautiful German shepherd, she’s stunned; she arranged the adoption of Burrow by ex-Marine Pete Russo, who volunteered at the shelter and whom she’d just started dating. Now, police have found Pete dead, and the cause of his demise is initially a mystery. Lily arranges for Mickey Sterling, her friend and fellow dog owner, to take Burrow until the police can release him for adoption. Several days later, while Lily and Mickey are walking the four dogs in the park, Burrow leads them to the dead body of a young woman. Is there a connection between the two deaths? In a bit of imaginative whimsy, Dziomba has Mickey’s dog, Nero, narrate several chapters, and the gentle giant’s cheerful tone is a welcome change from the staccato voice of the narrator, who relates the bulk of the tale. Although Dziomba provides enjoyably snarky dialogue between Lily and other characters, her prose frequently has the cadence of stage direction (“The boys [Lily’s dogs] saunter to the living room for naps. Lily completes the Saturday chores”). Still, the author’s experience as a rescue volunteer gives an air of authenticity to her descriptions of shelter work and the sensitive attention given to animals in a well-run no-kill facility. And, of course, readers will find the pups entertaining.

A whodunit with a promising premise and likable characters.