I had a hard time getting into this book. I fugure it's because a didn't start with the first book of the series. Way too many charcaters to keep track of and all the horse talk became tiring. It was an okay read. ( )

#12 in the series featuring Mary Minor “Harry” Harristeen and her cats Mrs. Murphy and Pewter and her Welsh Corgi, Tucker. This book opens with Harry finding Barry Monteith, a horse breeder and neighbor, dying, with his throat ripped out in what is assumed to be a wild animal attack. Later, it’s determined that it wasn’t—he was killed by human hands and a knife, but the odd thing is, the autopsy also reveals that he had rabies. Since Barry essentially dies in Harry’s arms, she’s quite shaken and her life goes topsy-turvy when the word of rabies gets out—first in Barry, and then in his business partner who ends up dying from it. The animal control officer, who begins to doggedly investigate the rabies also ends up dead—shot in the head—hours after telling Harry and the Postmaster that according to regulations she can no longer have her animals with her at the Post Office. I always enjoy these books, but this entry in the series was a little darker than some and slightly off-kilter, but that’s possibly due to Harry’s changing circumstances. I spotted the bad guy right away again, but wasn’t sure why the murders were committed until further along as the clues fell into place. Still, a mostly light, enjoyable listen, easy to concentrate on while unpacking and sorting and such. ( )

Another great read. This is my fourth or fifth book in this series. I really enjoy the characters especially the animals. Having a corgi and two cats myself, I am always amused by how well the author depicts and interprets the behavior of her animals. It makes one look at one's own animals in a different light.

Being a clergyman, I did pick up on one inaccuracy in her description of her pastor's vestments. Not that it made a hill of beans to the story. It is just something I noted. She describes in two places what is typically called a stole as a surplice. A surplice is a white short garment worn overtop of a cassock. It typically has short billowing sleeves and is waist length. A stole on the other hand is the cloth that drapes over the neck and is usually the color of the season and may have religious symbols embroidered in it. It a stole that she refers to when she is describing her pastor's colorful and ornately decorated surplice. ( )

This is, I believe, the worst book I have ever finished. A full catalog of its crimes would take several pages, but I shall try to restrain myself.

It is written in cliche-ridden, awkward English that is often incorrect; its characters are thinly drawn and tiresome, and its heroine verges on Mary-Sueism, so competent, virtuous, and beautiful is she. After all, if she cared about dressing well, she'd be the prettiest gal in town, and her blond, muscular, broad-chested veterinarian ex-husband wants her back sooooo much! Ah well, so much for restraining myself.

Perhaps most unforgiveable, after the ear-grating language, is the idealized setting in rural Northern Virginia, which comes with a pervasive assumption that people in rural N. VA have discovered the One True Way to live, and are nicer, more civilized, and just generally better than all others. I suppose no one told Rita Mae and her cat that the book would be distributed in many other places.

Anyway, the 'mystery' is not horrible, but I solved it fairly early on, and finished the book largely to see how long it would take Mary Sue to do so. The payoff was worth it, since she discovered so late in the game, and the consequences of her discovery were so appallingly melodramatic and badly thought out that my combined rage and laughter nearly caused me to crash my car when I got to that point in the audiobook.

About the reading: The reader was dreadful too. I guess her accents were nice enough, but her own awkward understanding of grammatical structure compounded the problems of the book, and her lack of proper emotional tone layered with that of the characters. ("I just found a man I know and like dying of a gushing neck wound! Ho-hum! How was YOUR day, strangely-named cardboard cutout character 3A?") ( )

Mediocre--the mystery is good but Rita gets up on her soap box AGAIN about things and that gets old FAST. ( )