Review: Bush Poodles Are Murder

Bush Poodles Are Murder Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Lou Allin
Class/Genre: Mystery Woman Main Character Dogs
Series: Belle Palmer # 3
2003, 273 pages

Belle Palmer is a realtor in Canada. Her best friend, Miriam, is dating Melibee Elphinstone. Belle doesn’t know much about him. Miriam talks Belle into joining them for dinner at Mel’s. Then Miriam finds Mel dead. She calls Belle, who rushes over. Unfortunately Miriam touched the Inuit sculpture that turns out to be the murder weapon. Belle calls her friend Steve, a police detective, over. Since Miriam has gone into shock, instead of arresting her, she is placed in a sanitarium to recuperate.

Belle takes in Miriam’s apricot mini-poodle, Strudel, until Miriam comes home and can take care of him herself. Her own dog, Freya, a shepherd, enjoys having a companion to play with.

Belle discovers that Mel had invested many women’s money and most of them had lost their life savings. Knowing that Miriam too had invested money, she got Jesse, another dear friend, to arrange for a lawyer for Miriam. But, Belle wasn’t sure that young Celeste could handle a murder trial if things should come to that. Then Steve is unavailable because he is under suspicion of taking bribes in drug investigations.

Belle is outraged. She thinks Brian, another detective, is behind these outlandish charges against Steve. Belle had scorned Brian’s amorous attempts. So, Belle begins investigating on her own. Belle meets Dorothy Grasslin at the sanitarium. She is a volunteer who comes to chat with the patients. Dorothy’s late husband was a P.I. so she asks to help Belle investigate Mel’s death. Miriam’s ex-husband Jack comes back to town to help with the investigation as well.

The only thing I had some trouble with was the terminology. It reminded me of some of the British mysteries. I could usually figure out what was meant, but I didn’t exactly know what they meant.

The other thing that I found to get a little old, was Belle’s referencing most things to an old movie she’d seen. I hadn’t seen many of them so the references didn’t mean much to me.

They get into many predicaments in their investigation. I like the various characters she has created. Belle is very believable and likeable. This being the first book I’ve read in this series, I only had the descriptions from this book to base my information on. Jack was well described and I thought he fit into the story well. I also like Jesse a lot.

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Dawn Dowdle

Book Review: Bush Poodles Are Murder