Eight Dogs Flying

Samantha Holt Mystery #1

by Karen Ann Wilson

Love’s a bitch, as Samantha Holt knows from a recent heartbreak. That’s why she moved to the calmer climes of Paradise Cay, Florida, where doctoring cats and dogs, as a vet’s technician helps keep her mind off lesser, two-legged creatures. She expected peach and quiet. What she didn’t expect is that her temperamental but unnervingly attractive, boss, Dr. Louis Augustin, would have a talent for trouble—and that playing Watson to his Holmes would turn out to be a dangerous part of her job description.

When Dr. Augustin is given the task of putting down a greyhound that has inexplicably turned vicious, he hesitates—the doomed animal is one of his ex-wife Rachel’s champion racers, And the dog’s attacks are just one in a series of misfortunes that have recently befallen her. Then the man she held responsible for her bad luck is killed—and Rachel is accused of murder. To clear her, Augustin and Samantha must go deep into the high-stakes, low-life world of dog racing…

Genres: Mystery

224 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 1, 1994

About the author

(from Cozy-Mysteries website)

Karen Ann Wilson writes a series that revolves around a veterinary technician.

(from Fantastic Fiction online)

Karen Wilson, a member of Sisters in Crime mystery writers. Karen uses the experience she gained showing Quarter Horses in hunt seat and dressage, and her journalism background, to create the realistic world of her mystery novels. She lives in southeastern Michigan with her husband, two horses and eight cats.

(from Amazon.com)

Samantha Holt works as a vet's technician in Paradise Cay, Florida. When a basket full of wet kittens and counterfeit banknotes turns up at the back door of the clinic, on the very morning that one of the vet's clients turns up dead in a nearby canal, Samantha wonders if there is a connection.

Reviews

[Christina Getrost · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for my staff book club "Cozy Mystery" month, and had so much fun with it that I immediately read the three sequels. I love stories involving vet and animal stuff. But I'm bummed that there are no more entries in the series! I'm only getting to it 30 years after it was written, no biggie :-). So this review can work for the set of four books as a whole. The main character Samantha has a very funny dry wit, with droll observations about the clients and pets who come in to her vet clinic. I was surprised to see that she's not really the driving force behind the amateur investigations, she's more of a reluctant-but-not-too-unwilling partner in her boss' snooping. He's the Holmes to her Dr. Watson, basically, and she narrates the stories. In this first outing, the vet's ex-wife's greyhound dogs are accused of attacking people unprovoked; she claims they've been poisoned. As Sam and Dr. Augustin get more involved in investigating, the suspense and suspects increase--and so does a little bit of romantic tension between the two. (This is why I wanted the series to continue, dagnabbit! Spoiler alert: the romance is very unfinished. Sigh.)

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a pretty enjoyable dog-centric cozy mystery. Nothing earth shattering but extremely likeable!

[Helen Fleischer · Rating 3 out of 5]

choppy, abrupt ending 1st novelitis?