THE WICKED FLEA

Yet another in the stories featuring Cambridge-dweller and dog journalist Holly Winter, “the only landlord in Cambridge . . . who won’t rent to you unless you have at least one pet,” and her ribbon-winning Alaskan Malamutes Rowdy and Kimi. Ditched by her veterinarian lover Steve Delaney when he married glamorous disbarred lawyer Anita Fairley, a depressed Holly is alternating between sessions with improbably named psychiatrist Vee Foote and equally therapeutic bouts of exercising her dogs in Clear Creek Park in the company of her elderly longtime friend Ceci Love and her aging Newfoundland, Quest. Unfortunately, there are problems at the park, too—the rovings and revelations of a trench-coated male exhibitionist and the pesky antics of Zsa-Zsa, a golden retriever owned by irrepressible breeder Sylvia Metzner. Sylvia’s family—her ne’er-do-well son Eric, her daughter Pia, and Pia’s husband, Wilson Goodenough—are no help bringing either Zsa-Zsa or her owner to heel, but even they seem shocked when Sylvia’s body is discovered in the park, shot dead. Needless to say, it’s Holly who, in between showing her dogs, winning medals, and writing her column, finally homes in on Sylvia’s murderer en route to a happy ending of her own.

Conant has a likable style, often with wry overtones, that might make canophobes wish she’d tackle a different venue occasionally. Meantime, though, sheer bliss awaits the dedicated dog-lover.