Bought at a library book sale specifically for a challenge.

I'm reading through it first, before releasing it. But so far it seems like a nice mix of Sherlock Holmes and canine culture.

Mailing this out as a prize for my new job RABCK.
Also releasing for the Dog Days of Summer Challenge 2006.

I really enoyed this and will post a short review/journal entry later today when I have more time :-)

This is on its way in the mail (surface mail) to Australia, but I finally remembered to make a journal entry/review.

This book was a very interesting mix of the love of Holmes and of dogs. I found it a lot of fun and interesting to get to know the characters (especially the main character) and her dog (though I would have liked to have known more about Kimi since we see Rowdy more). However I felt impatient as I waited for the plot to start. Little did I know that everything the author was making sure she pointed out before the murder actually happened would come in handy later down the road. Still, I'm not a fan of the storytelling. Once it picked up speed, I was much more interested and had a great time reading it... even if I didn't quite "get" the Cambridge culture insults- just not my neck of the world.

Anyway, I thought it was a nice read and a very creative way of putting together the two subjects. I'm not going to run right out and find the other books by the author, but I'm certainly glad I had a chance to read this one :-)

Thankyou for this RABCK - it arrived so quickly. I wasn't expecting it for a while yet. I have read 2 other Conant books that a friend loaned me and that I enjoyed, so I look forward to reading it. For now, it's onto MtTBR it goes.

cover:
An avid devotion to the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and an equally avid devotion to dogs, combine to draw Holly Winter and her two beloved malamutes, Rowdy and Kimi, into one of Conant's most original and entertaining mysteries to date.

Rowdy has finished his training as a therapy dog and now accompanies Holly on weekly visits to the Gateway Nursing Home, where they meet Althea Battlefield, still formidable at the age of ninety, and her two elderly, admiring cohorts, Hugh and Robert--all fanatic devotees of the Master (as they call Sherlock Holmes). When Althea's grandnephew is murdered at the home of her younger sister, Ceci, everyone is horrified, but it's the plight of Ceci herself--who is being victimized by an unscrupulous animal psychic--that finally unites this unlikely group in a crime-stopping spree that requires not only the finely tuned ratiocination of the Holmes admirers but the eager cooperation of an outraged Holly and the very particular talents of her willing canine accomplices.

No special knowledge of the Sherlockian canon is required for the utmost enjoyment of this engaging romp, and Conant's own devoted followers will be delighted to find her dog-loving alter ego, Holly Winter, still poking fun at the world of Cambridge eccentrics and dog fancy fanatics, but also expanding her horizons into the world of literary trivia and--yes--feline rescue, however initially reluctant.

Easy reading and mildly amusing. I found the constant Holmes references irritating, and Robert & Hugh superfluous, but the story was reasonably entertaining. Holly was very slow on the uptake regarding the missing dog. I would like to know how Tracker the cat gets on, & whether Rowdy & Kimi accept her.

Left for the book exchange trolley.