(2007) Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund          

Pet-sitter/former sheriff’s deputy Dixie Hemingway is walking one of her canine clients, Mame, when she’s stunned to find the aging dachshund with her teeth sunk into the hand of a half-buried body. Dixie believes she may have waved and shouted, “Hey,” to the murderer as he sped away from the crime scene in a familiar vehicle. Dixie didn’t actually recognize who was driving, but the murder might not know that.

Dixie has seen more than her share of tragedy in her 32 years and she doesn’t appear emotionally strong enough to become involved with the hunt for a murderer. Lt. Guidry, Dixie’s firefighter brother Michael and his partner Paco, an undercover cop, prefer she stay out of it, too. But isn’t she already involved when it becomes obvious the killer is out to get her?

Although Dixie’s career choice, the book’s alliterative title and dust-jacket art featuring a cute dachshund may scream “cozy,” Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund isn’t. I don’t believe cozy readers will be disappointed – even though the language is a tad salty.  But readers who eschew cozies may give Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund  a pass based solely on those externals. That would be unfortunate because it’s a terrific read.

Sometimes I natter on about coarse language in mysteries, but Ms. Clement is especially careful about using such language for a purpose.  When Dixie, in dialogue or as a first-person narrator, uses coarse language, it seems quite natural. And the even coarser language used by the evildoers helps develop those characters. The author was also terrific at painting a picture of life on Siesta Key FL when the snowbirds go home. Highly recommended.

By Diana. First published in Mystery News, June-July 2007 issue.

Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund is “not quite cozy.”

(2006) Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter

A mystery with a pink dust jacket and a great title introduces Dixie Hemingway, a thirty-two-year-old former deputy sheriff who takes care of pets while their owners are on vacation. Although Dixie prefers to spend her time with animals rather than people, she becomes involved in a murder when she finds the body of a man who appears to have drowned in the water dish of a cat she is sitting.

Between humorous descriptions of animals, blunt observations about the people she has to deal with, and the discovery of a second body, Dixie’s past (she left the sheriff’s department after her husband and three-year-old daughter were killed by a nonagenarian who should have given up driving years earlier) is revealed in small pieces.

Although Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter has a darker ending than most cozy mysteries, I definitely recommend this book, and I look forward to the second Dixie Hemingway mystery.

By Nancy. First published at Cozy Library. (March 8, 2006)