BRIDE & GROOM

All those in favor of Holly and Steve’s wedding wag your tails and woof.

Before three malamutes, one pointer, one German shepherd, and their owners, doggie cookbook author Holly Winter (“101 Ways to Cook Liver”) and divorced veterinarian Steve Delaney (The Wicked Flea, 2002, etc.) walk down the aisle, however, there’s unfinished business to tend to. No fewer than five Boston-area women—an anesthesiologist, a dog tarot reader, a dog healing-touch practitioner, a plagiarizing dog journalist, and a married vet—will be bludgeoned to death. Between gown fittings, bridal showers, sparsely attended book signings, and blissful moments (at least for her charges) in which she hands out dog treats, Holly not only spies her best friend Rita’s supposedly loyal lover in flagrante in a parked car but discovers the connection among the five victims. Unfortunately, the killer’s reaction is to continue as before, leaving poor, aged Uli a canine orphan and creating a few empty seats at the Holly/Steve nuptials.

The plot’s not as well-behaved as the dogs, but there’s not a cat-writer around with Conant’s wit and breezy sophistication.