In this 29th book in the 'Sarah Booth Delaney' series, private detectives Sarah Booth Delaney and Tinkie Richmond - who run the 'Delaney Detective Agency' in Zinnia, Mississippi - are on a dogs' rights mission.
Animal rights is a cause close to author Carolyn Haines' heart. At the end of the book, Haines notes: "For the past thirty-plus years I've worked with a handful of dedicated friends to support Good Fortune Farm Refuge, a nonprofit dedicated to animal welfare."
Author Carolyn Haines
*****
As the story begins, Sarah Booth and Tinkie are hired to find a chow chow/spitz mix called Jezebel. The canine has been dognapped from her owner Tilly Lawson, who lives in the nearby town of Nixville, Mississippi.
The abduction seems spiteful, because Tilly is a very active senior citizen who's publicly accused Nixville's Mayor Fenway and Police Chief Garwool of being involved in a dogfighting ring.
The abduction of Jezebel is the tip of the iceberg, because another dog called Cupcake goes missing soon afterward, and other dognappings follow.
Sarah Booth and Tinkie know that people steal pups to use as bait dogs for fighting, or to sell to labs for medical experiments, or to keep as personal pets. Being huge dog lovers, the private detectives are determined to find the missing dogs and punish the thieves and miscreants who abuse them.
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The sleuths are aided in their mission by friends and family, including: Sarah Booth's boyfriend, Coleman Peters - the sheriff of Sunflower County; Tinkie's husband Oscar - an influential banker; Harold Erkwell -whose dog Roscoe is an excellent tracker; CeCe Dee Falcon - a journalist; Millie - a restaurateur whose café has the best food in the region; Madame Tomeeka - a psychic; and Dawson Reed - a pet detective who searches for missing animals.
As Sarah Booth and Tinkie investigate, they unearth a number of suspects, including Rutherford Mace, a former professional wrestler whose property - filled with outbuildings - would be ideal for hiding dogs; Zotto Hammerfist - a fighter who teaches in Mace's wrestling school; Ellis Adams - a good-for-nothing teenage boy who's been hanging around with Mace; Gertrude Stromm - a psychopath who's wanted by the police; and more.
Most of the story has Sarah Booth and Tinkie - armed with righteous anger, a gun, and their fists - running around here and there, confronting suspects and searching for the missing dogs.
Often, the detectives have canine 'helpers', including Tinkie's yorkie Chablis, Sarah Booth's hound Sweetie Pie, the tracker dog Roscoe, and a pittie-hound mix called Avalon - who was found in Rutherford Mace’s field.
Sarah Booth and Tinkie follow various real and false trails to resolve the case and identify the culprits.
I'm 100% in synch with Sarah Boothe and Tinkie's dogs' rights crusade, but I can only mildly recommend this novel. To me, the book seems like the work of a young writer in a fiction class who's penning a 'wishful thinking' narrative. I can't believe Sarah Booth and Tinkie, two relatively lightweight gals, would run around BY THEMSELVES (sometimes in stilettos), confronting dangerous men: spying on them; jabbing them with letter openers; making threats; pulling guns, etc.
For instance, in one scene Sarah Booth says: "Oh, I felt certain if I had to slap the snot out of [Police Chief] Garwool....I'd end up in jail. If I could prove Garwool was working with Gertrude - a known criminal and a wanted woman - I intended to run him out of office permanently. After I kicked his butt all over town."
The novel is full of sketches like this, and they're not credible (to me).
On the upside, I like Sarah Booth's personal 'haint'(ghost) Jitty, who shows up periodically impersonating a well-known historical or current figure. Jitty's mission is to advise Sarah Booth, and to nag her to have a baby. In this story Jitty impersonates actress Brigitte Bardot; animal rights activist Henry Bergh; actress Betty White; anthropologist Jane Goodall; and musician Paul McCartney.
Jane Goodall
I also appreciate the 'southernisms' sprinkled through the story. For instance:
"If Ellis's brain was made of TNT, he wouldn't have enough juice to blow his nose."
"She's going to be meaner than a sack full of cottonmouths."
"I'm more like a tick than a spider. Once I'm dug in I'm hard to shake."
"You've crawled inside a croaker sack with a rattlesnake."
I've enjoyed several books in the 'Sarah Booth Delaney' series, and this story seems like an outlier, as if it was penned by a ghostwriter. However, the animal rights cause is trumpeted loud and clear, which might appeal to some readers.
Thanks to Netgalley, Sarah Haines, and Minotaur Books for a copy of the book.
Rating: 2.5 stars
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