A review by jackie_of_all_books
Doggone Deadly by Deborah Blake

3.0

The second book in the series. This one is equal to the first. Both a more light hearted mystery. Kari volunteers to help he best friend Suz run the dog show when things begin to go wrong quickly. After cleaning up the first night Kari and Suz discover Francine’s dead body in a tent. And she has been stabbed by a pair of Suz dog scissors. Suz instantly becomes the prime suspect so Kari makes it her goal to clear her best friend. Suz doesn’t have an exact witness of where she was from running the show and being everywhere at once but the sheriff is also interviewing any possible suspects. Kari mentions a big man talking to Francine twice that day making Francine look uncomfortable. They also mention Mariam confronting her on being someone else and being there under a different identity. Then Francine’s van gets smashed in the parking lot and they wonder if it was the vegan protesters who had screamed at Francine and called her an animal murderer for having a puppy mill. That evening Kari and Suz went with the cop to Francine’s house so they could help care for dogs if she didn’t have anyone else there to care for them but while they were in the house a man showed up. Herman blue. He said that he had the dogs under control. So they left. Miriam tells the cop that she believes Olivia Weiners dog has the same issues her dog had from the breeder and that breeder was Lisa Keller who she believes is faking being Francine. Olivia calls her outrageous but Kari wants to see it through so she takes her microchip scanner and her and the sheriff go to Francine’s house to check the dogs and see if one of them was Miriam’s. Miriam was supposed to go with them but never showed up. When they get to Francine’s they find a large man raiding her house who they discover is hee husband from when she was Lisa Keller and she changed her identity and took half their things and all their money and he’s there to get it back. Then Herman Blue shows up. That’s when Kari asks to go back out to the kennels. She scans the dogs and discovers many of their microchips don’t match the info. That’s when she starts looking at medications and discovers there are dog names on the medicine that aren’t in the kennel so she demands for Herman to show her where the other dogs are. They follow a trail into the woods and find a puppy mill. Tons and tons of bichon mothers and puppies cramped in tiny crates. The sheriff lets Herman know that Kari will be removing them and taking them to her shelter and other shelters that can support them. When they get back to the dog show Kari is filling hee friends in on what they discovered when Suz gets a complaint about a porta pot that has been closed for a long time. When they pop the lock they find a dead Miriam strangled by one of Suzs dog leash. Suz is instantly even higher on the suspect list. That is until Kari has a plan. She asks Herman to meet them at the dog show. And she brings Olivia. And she starts questioning Olivia on her Bichons registered name. That’s when Olivia finally enrages and confesses that she killed both Francine and Miriam but she feels as if it’s rational. Francine blackmailed her and said unless she paid her $500 a month she would tell everyone that her precious champion bichon snowflake is actually inbred and not a purebred. So Olivia couldn’t let Francine take dog shows away from her so she killed her. That’s when Miriam convinced the kennel club to get all bichons tested so they can verify their bloodlines. Olivia couldn’t have that either because then the truth would come out so she had to kill miriam as well. Safe to say Olivia was put in handcuffs. And Kari was set for a dinner date with the cute vet.