"Dead-End Job Mystery"

Refusing to pay alimony to her cheating lazy former spouse as the Judge ruled claiming he was a devoted house husband who enabled her to achieve career success, Helen Hawthorne fled her life as a thriving businesswoman in St. Louis to work off the books in southern Florida. She quickly learns that proprietors, at least in the Fort Lauderdale area, are not concerned with your past or your social security number though none of her jobs come decimally close to the six figures she annually earned in Missouri..

Currently Helen works off the books at Pampered Pets in Fort Lauderdale. Two customers have recently been murdered. Nymphomaniac trophy wife Tammie Grimsby and Willoughby Barclay, who is in a legal divorce fight with his wife. The biggest arguments are over custody of their child Barkley the "Labradoodle". Though she knows better to mind her business, as she has a recent history of unsafe involvement (see SHOP TILL YOU DROP and JUST MURDERED), Helen investigates anyway.

The fifth Dead-End Job Mystery is a delightful lampooning of the pet world where canines serve as chic accessories so an owner can be part of the "in-crowd" regardless of the abuse of the animal. The amateur sleuth investigation as always in this series is fun to follow because of the acerbic asides by the heroine who assumes the mantle of K- 9 champion even as she referees between battling groomers while seeking the killer amidst a litter of suspects. Readers will enjoy Elaine Viets delightful satirizing whodunit.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted July 19, 2006

The national bestselling series that gives new meaning to the phrase "dead-end job" makes its hardcover debut.

Summary

With a résumé that includes attempted assault and alimony evasion, Helen Hawthorne has no choice but to take on a series of dead-end jobs to make ends meet. At the Pampered Pet Boutique, Helen hustles a selection of canine cuisine and couture that beats anything in her own fridge or closet. And when Helen goes to deliver a dog to a client, she finds the blonde trophy wife stretched out naked by her pool, a pair of ten-inch grooming scissors sticking out of her chest. Later that same day, a valuable labradoodle puppy is kidnapped from the boutique.

All eyes turn to Helen as the main suspect, and with a hurricane headed straight for South Florida, Helen's got to find the killer and come clean, or else her new life will be gone with the wind.