J.A. Jance, Virginia Lanier, Chassie West, and Lee Bark M for Murder

Bark M for Murder

J.A. Jance, Virginia Lanier, Chassie West, and Lee Charles Kelley

Avon, March 2006, $6.99, 320 pp.

ISBN 006081537X

"Red Shirt and Black Jacket" by Virginia Lanier. Two robbers kill a convenience store clerk, and the police send Jo Beth Sidden, Jasmine Jones and their bloodhounds to scent out the killers. The dogs steal the show in this exciting mystery that has a very big chase scene.

"Nightmare in Nowhere" by Chasse West. Duke the German Shepard wakes A.J. up by licking her; she carefully gets out of the backseat of a car that looks like it is going to drop into a deep river. She has no idea where she is or why she was in the car, or who the driver was. The dog takes her to Jake, a police officer vacationing in Maryland, but he has no phone to call for outside help. Jake tries to help the amnesiac but someone keeps shooting at them, forcing them to run from the cabin. Chassie West has written an exciting tale with realistic characters.

"The French Poodle Connection" by Lee Charles Kelley. Former cop turned homicide detective Jack Field is at Cady Clark's home teaching her dog not to bite people, when her ex-husband turns up with a gun because he just robbed a bank. Cady gets the gun after Jack knocks her ex unconscious and holds it on Jack, forcing him to go to a deserted area while she frees her ex. This is the beginning of a crime spree that ends with four dead, five if you count Cady, who Jack doesn't because he believes she is alive. Lee Charles Kelley has written an entertaining mystery filled with twists and red herrings.

The Case of the London Cabbie by J.A. Jance. Septuagenarian Maddie Watkins plans to prove that the twenty nine year old man her sister loves is a con artist after her fortune. She hires him under a false name to drive her around to look at properties that supposedly belonged to her late husband. Catching him in many lies, she follows him in her car, only to be threatened by him when he catches her, and her sister becomes his hostage. JA. Jance has written a fantastic mystery with a heroine who deserves her own series.