Dogs Don't Lie: A Pru Marlowe Pet Noir

Dogs Don't Lie: A Pru Marlowe Pet Noir (Pru Marlowe Pet Noir #1)

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3.56 of 5 stars 3.56  ·  rating details  ·  165 ratings  ·  50 reviews
Pru Marlowe isn't your ordinary animal psychic. A tough girl on the run from her own gift, Pru left the big city to return to her picturesque Berkshires hometown looking for a little peace. Too bad that her training as an animal behaviorist got her mixed up with Lily, a rescue dog, and Charles, her person. Now Charles is dead, and Lily looks good for it. After all, Lily is...more
ebook, 256 pages
Published May 27th 2010 by Poisoned Pen Press
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Sandie
Oct 09, 2011 Sandie rated it 4 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: cat lovers, cozy lovers, loves of character-driven mysteries
Recommended to Sandie by: Clea Simon
Small town life in Beauville is pretty much the same as any small town in New England. It is also the hometown for budding animal behaviorist Pru Marlowe. Pru had moved to New York City to do her schooling, but she didn’t quite finish. Between working herself sick, working toward her certification, and the internship required of a behaviorist, she’d ended up in the hospital discovering that she could hear the thoughts of the animals around her. There were far too many voices assaulting her in th...more
Natalie
The story has been reviewed from others very well, so I will tell you what I liked about it: the way the animals are portrayed. Of course it implements our projection on to them. But still Clea Simon obviously loves animals and spends a lot of time studying them.

What strikes me most is that Lily the pitbull-rescue-dog is drawn as a lovable soul, that just does not understand what happened.

Thank you for that Clea. Finally someone rallying for those beautiful animals. It becomes so clear, through...more
Wonderbunny
I thought this was a really good mystery (which was almost a cozy mystery). Pru is an interesting character. She talks to animals and is a little unsure of herself but she seems in control throughout this entire novel. She can take of herself even when a few insecurities. The mystery was good and found it kept me guessing.
Maria Schneider
This book had some really good parts, but boy, did it drag, especially the second half. Visits to the same people, covering the same old ground over and over. The animals are way smarter than the humans and frankly, are what made the book readable. The main protag was more like a cardboard figure just going back and forth over the same territory trying to figure things out. Some clues (provided by the animals) seemed to come from nowhere. Sometimes the animals seemed to have such a good understa...more
Lyn
Animal behaviorist Pru Marlowe dropped out of school just before getting her degree, but she has something even degreed animal behaviorists don't have. She can talk to animals and they talk to her.

Talking and listening to animals tips the scale for the overworked and sleep-deprived student. After a hospitalization she leaves the city and returns to her hometown in the Berkshires. Her mother died shortly after her return and she now lives in her childhood home. Pru works as a dog walker and anima...more
SenoraG
I picked this book from netgalley on a whim. I usually do not read animal books but something about this caught my eye and I am glad I gave it a chance.

The mystery is of course who killed Charles and why. Pru is trying to come to terms with her "gift" of hearing the animals, the gift that caused her to run from the big city home to small town of Berkshire where everyone knows your name and your business.

I found Pru to be an adorable main character who is able to communicate with animals. Pru is...more
Carol
Jun 28, 2012 Carol rated it 3 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: those wanting a light read for a few hours
Mostly fun, occasionally irritating. The book is light fluff and has pretentions of nothing more.

Pru Marlowe, almost a registered animal behaviorist, suddenly has a mental break-through (down?) that has her listening in to what the animals around are thinking. New to her, it has her freaking, concerned about a psychotic mental condition, that people, should they find out, will think she is as she fears - NUTS!

Throw into this situation that in her panic she ran home to a town she didn't want to s...more
Nora-adrienne
Mar 09, 2011 Nora-adrienne rated it 5 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone
Recommended to Nora-adrienne by: Author
Dogs Don’t Lie
By: Clea Simon
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Copyright April 2011

Pru Marlowe couldn’t wait to get out of her small town. Now years later she is running home to get away from herself. She has a gift that while helpful in her chosen profession as an animal behaviorist is driving her a bit out of her mind.

After her mother passes away, and living in the house she grew up in, she starts a business working with pet owners teaching them (after talking to their pets) what they need to do to...more
Jeannie and Louis Rigod
Clea Simon is one of my favorite Authors and here we are given the tasty treat of a new series, involving, pets, their behaviors, their thoughts, and how, if we were given the gift that Pru Marlowe has been, would communicate with each other.

Pru Marlowe is only a bit away from being a certified animal behaviorist. She has a mystery illness in her past which halted her studies but gave her an incredible gift of being able to communicate with her animal clients, if she can learn to control the gif...more
Yvonne
Pru Marlowe recently returned to her beautiful hometown in the Berkshires for some peace and quiet. Unfortunately, that’s the last thing she’s going to get. Pru has a gift. She can communicate with animals.

As an animal behaviorist Pru has a variety of different pet clients including Lily, a rescue dog, who was taken in and given a home by Charles, one of the local citizens. Lily is a pit bull who loves her human, but tragedy strikes when Charles is killed and Lily is accused of his murder. Pru i...more
Dixie
I received a free e-galley of Dogs Don’t Lie by Clea Simon from the publisher, Poisoned Pen Press.

Dogs Don’t Lie centers around the murder of Charles, owner of a pit bull named Lily (a.k.a. Tetris). The murder is staged to appear that Lily killed Charles. Animal psychic and behaviorist, Pru Marlowe, works as Lily’s trainer and finds Charles’ body during a routine training session. Recognizing Lily’s innocence, Pru must search for the true murderer in order to get Lily off the hook for murder and...more
Jack
Wow! What a great book! I was looking about Amazon.com when the "other books you might like" section popped up with a book called "Cats Can't Shoot," by Clea Simon. I couldn't resist. I opened and read the sample chapter Amazon had posted and was immediately sucked in. Only one thing stopped me from hitting "Add to Cart" right then and there. If I was going to enter into a brand new world, I wanted to get in on the ground floor. So I searched for other books in the "Pru Marlowe Pet Noir" series....more
Tara Chevrestt
This was a fun book. I loved the way the heroine, Pru has conversations with her cat Wallis, a ferret named Frank, a bichon frise called Growler, a pit bull, and numerous other felines. I really enjoyed that.

This is basically a whodunit, but with a twist. The twist being that animals are the key behind figuring it out. Pru is a "dog whisperer" who hears what the animals are saying, but doesn't always interpret it the right way. In this case, a pit bull and a kitten are the key witnesses to the m...more
Kari
Pru is a psychic who can hear animals thoughts. She has also been working toward her animal behaviorist degree when her gift showed up. One of her clients is murdered and she feels she must prove the dog didn't do it. I listened to the audiobook and at first I wasn't sure I was going to like it. The narrator's transition from Pru to animal was not always apparent to me. Once I got used to the very subtle difference in the narrator's voice for Pru and the one for animals, it went much more smooth...more
Glenajo
Pru Marlowe, who developed a psychic sense with animal thoughts after a physical/mental collapse, works with animals with behavior problems in an attempt to solve those problems. The book begins when she discovers an owner’s body with one of her clients, a pit bull. Lily, the pit bull is the immediate suspect, but Pru knows that Lily would not harm another after a stint in dog fighting. Pru eventually realizes that she must discover whom the actual murderer to save Lily as well as her self.

The b...more
Cathy Cole
First Line: The problem with murder is that it's messy.

Pru Marlowe is an animal psychic. To escape the cacophony of furry voices in her head, she ran from the big city back to her small town home in the Berkshires hoping for a little peace. Unfortunately her training as an animal behaviourist and her need for money to pay the bills put her right in the path of Lily, a rescue dog, and Charles, her person. Now Charles is dead, and the distraught Lily looks like the killer. After all, she's a pit b...more
Jenny Rose
Pru Marlowe was training to be an animal behaviorist, until she managed to work herself sick. She then woke up to realize she could hear animals’ thoughts, beginning with her own cat, Wallis. She tried to escape the animals’ voices by heading back home to a small town and told everyone it was because of her ailing mother. When her mother passed away, she inherited her childhood home. Pru was trying to build a business of working with people’s animals, secretly using her ability to hear the anima...more
Debra Daniels-zeller
I really liked the subject matter---a pet psychic that solves murders? Very clever. I was torn between a 3 and 4 star rating for this one because I really liked the main characte. But the truth is, I put this book down in the middle to finish another book and I didn't really miss the character or story line enough to get back to it, even though I finished the book. Animal behaviorist Pru Marlow makes this mystery interesting. The overall story (somebody was murdered, who did it?) wasn't as fast...more
Sarah
I liked this book and would definitely read the next installment in the series.

I thought the author did a good job at describing how differently animals see the world. The interaction between the main character, Pru, and her cat was interesting and amusing. I also like how Pru's gift of communicating with animals progressed as the story went along.

The story kept my interest, and I liked the slight twists and turns throughout the book. However, I thought there were a few holes at the end when th...more
Morven
May 28, 2012 Morven rated it 4 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: Cat lovers, dog lovers, mystery lovers
Recommended to Morven by: Can't remember
I really enjoyed this book, even though the "person in peril" was a dog :-)

Those who know me know I'm just kidding. Though I'm an inveterate cat lover, I do hug and cuddle goggies, especially the smaller one. The dog in peril in this book is a Pit Bull, whose breed has been much maligned in recent years.

The pace was great, the animals were great, and the premise interesting, but it took me a while to get used to the reader (I listened to the audio version).

The author clearly knows animals, and...more
Olgalijo
I'm one of those people who like animals more than humans, so, as soon as I saw this book, I had to read it. Even if it's touted as a pet "noir", it isn't so "noir" as to offend sensibilities. The general structure is pretty much the same as many other detective stories: a mysterious crime, and a person (in this case not a detective or a cop) with many other personal issues who gets involved and has to solve the mystery. In this case, the help comes from the protagonist animal friends. The way i...more
Eddy Allen
Pru Marlowe isn't your ordinary animal psychic. A tough girl on the run from her own gift, Pru left the big city to return to her picturesque Berkshires hometown looking for a little peace. Too bad that her training as an animal behaviorist got her mixed up with Lily, a rescue dog, and Charles, her person. Now Charles is dead, and Lily looks good for it. After all, Lily is a pitbull, a fighting-ring dropout, and way too traumatized to give Pru a clear picture of what she has witnessed. But Pru k...more
Estelahe
I'm a fan of quirky noir, but this just veered too far into weird for me. An animal behaviorist student gets a bad flu and suddenly develops animal psychic powers, drops out of school and moves home to take care of her dying mother, the sets up shop as an animal trainer and dog walker. Which might be fine if I weren't thinking every other page that the woman had a nervous breakdown and is just plain nuts. The mystery was all right, nothing too special, but I really couldn't bring myself to like...more
A.
Pru was working on her degree to be an animal behaviorist, but when Pru starts hearing the animals it isn't the sunny world of Dr. Doolittle for her. She ends up sleep deprived and overwhelmed and consequently drops out of school with only a few weeks remaining to have completed her degree, and pulls up stakes to go to her small hometown. The idea was to get away from New York with its multitudes of pets while going home to take care of her ailing mother.

The story begins with Pru restraining Li...more
Shelleyrae at Book'd Out
Dog's Don't Lie wasn't the lighthearted paranormal mystery I was expecting. The first in a new series, Simon introduces Pru Marlowe, who develops a psychic sensitivity to animals after a physical collapse, just weeks shy of graduating as an animal behavourist. Overwhelmed, Pru returns to her hometown, ostensibly to care for her ailing mother, but desperately needing to adjust to her new ability. With her mother's death, Pru decides to put her training to use and is hired by Charles to train the...more
Lee
Pru Marlowe was in college studying animal behavior when she comes down with an illness and suddenly discovers that she can hear animal's thoughts. While she finds communicating with her cat comforting, the constant cacophony of all the other animals living in the city is too much for her. She drops out of school and returns to the small town she grew up in to care for her dying mother. The story picks up sometime after her mother's death as one of Pru's clients is found dead and his pit bull is...more
Karen & Gerard
"Dogs Don’t Lie" by Clea Simon is a good, quick mystery in a small town. A man is found dead at his home and all signs point to his dog, but did the dog really do it? The best parts of the book for me are that Pru Marlow could understand what her cat, Wallis, was saying and the Dog, Lilly, becomes a hero at the end! The plot was a bit confusing, but it’s still a good read!
Shomeret
This is the first book I've read by Clea Simon, but it won't be my last. I really like the concept of this series. I don't really consider it noir. Perhaps it is very dark by the standards of cozy readers. On the spectrum of cozy to noir, this book would be somewhere in the middle. That happens to be the type of mystery I prefer, not too extreme in either direction.
Kim
Just listened to the audio of this interesting book. Love that she can hear what the animals say, and just like people, some are not as clear to understand as others. Also a great book for understanding the pit bull dog. It's how they are raised, not their breed, that makes them aggressive.
Laurie Ricard
This book was totally not what I expected. I stumbled across it by accident and found a new Author to follow. Pru and her cat are awesome and if you have cats you can almost picture your animals doing the same things. I recommend this to anyone in just about any age group
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Dogs Don't Lie: A Pru Marlowe Pet Noir (Paperback)
Dogs Don't Lie: A Pru Marlowe Pet Noir (Paperback)
Dogs Don't Lie: A Pru Marlowe Pet Noir (Hardcover)
Dogs Don't Lie (Kindle Edition)
Dogs Don't Lie: Pru Marlowe Series, Book 1 (MP3 Book)

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Clea Simon is the author of the Dulcie Schwartz feline mysteries, the Pru Marlowe pet noir mysteries, and the Theda Krakow mysteries, as well as three nonfiction books, including The Feline Mystique: On the Mysterious Connection Between Women and Cats. The recipient of multiple honors, including the Cat Writers Associations Presidents Award, she lives in Somerville, Massachusetts, with her husband...more
More about Clea Simon...
Mew Is for Murder (Theda Krakow Mystery #1) Cattery Row (Theda Krakow Mystery #2) Cries and Whiskers (Theda Krakow Mystery #3) Shades of Grey (Dulcie Schwartz Mystery #1) Probable Claws (Theda Krakow Mystery #4)

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