COLLARED

A bartender and one of his regulars find themselves out of their league when they agree to do a shot of private-eye work for a customer.

Virginia “Ginny” Mallard’s the kind of person who notices things, even little things like when her regular bartender, Teddy Tonica, shorts a patron a finger of booze in his vodka tonic. Usually, this skill in observing suits Ginny in her job as a private concierge—it helps her notice the details for coordination that her clients love—but it may have gotten her in trouble with her latest job. When Ginny overhears a man at her local bar complaining about his missing Uncle Joe, she figures that a little private investigation can’t be that much of a jump from her usual 9-to-5. To her surprise, Tonica agrees to help with the search. Walter “DubJay” Jacobs offers Ginny the basics on his uncle: The two run a corporate realty firm, and DubJay needs to find Joe in a few short days to file some paperwork. This all seems straightforward to Ginny, but when she receives a threatening text involving the case, she knows she’ll be relying on Tonica more than she’d expected. After all, her only other ally is Georgie, a canine who’s more cuddler than watchdog. Tonica’s got some animal assistance, too, though he maintains that Penny is the bar’s cat and not really his. As the case progresses, Ginny and Tonica find it more fraught than they anticipated. Thank goodness their pet pals have their backs.

Cloying talk from companion animals obscures the budding human relationship in Kornetsky’s bar cozy debut.