Putting on the Dog

Informationen zum Autor Cynthia Baxter is a native of Long Island, New York. She is the author of the Reigning Cats & Dogs mystery series, featuring vet-turned-sleuth Jessie Popper, and the Murder Packs a Suitcase mystery series, featuring travel writer Mallory Marlowe. Baxter currently resides on the North Shore, where she is at work on her next mysteries in both series. Klappentext A charity dog show has Jessica hitting the road with her faithful one-eyed Dalmatian! Lou! and her tailless Westie! Max! for the palatial summer estates of Long Island's fabled East End. When she arrives! the posh seaside community is crawling with stars eager to take best in show for their beloved pooches. But it's murder most tacky when a celebrity photographer is felled by a giant ice sculpture at a $500-a-plate fund-raiser. Unable to resis the scent of the hunt! Jess is soon investigating a casting director's dream of potential suspects. But if Jess isn't careful! she just might become the next victim of a killer determined to prove she's barking up the wrong tree. Chapter One "All men are intrinsically rascals, and I am only sorry that not being a dog, I can't bite them." --Lord Byron Damn you, Marcus Scruggs!" I grumbled, leaning closer to the windshield of my van and peering through the sheeting rain. "Be honest, guys: Am I totally nuts?" Max and Lou, scrambling around on the seat beside me, offered no opinion about my sanity. They were too busy acting like unruly preschoolers, wrestling for the space nearest the window. It was a close contest. Lou, my one-eyed Dalmatian, had longer legs. But Max, being a terrier, was infinitely more determined. I sighed. Somehow, this wasn't the way I'd pictured my arrival in the Bromptons, a cluster of posh seaside communities famous for their palatial summer estates, spectacular white-sanded beaches, and four-star restaurants featuring twelve-dollar desserts. Between the area's attributes and the fact that it was less than two hours from Manhattan, it wasn't surprising that the movers and shakers from New York City and Los Angeles had claimed Long Island's East End as their own. For decades, the Bromptons had been known as the summer playground of movie stars, rock legends, writers, and artists, as well as the agents, managers, and executives whose names weren't as well-known, but whose summer homes were at least as large. So it hadn't been difficult for Marcus Scruggs, a fellow Long Island veterinarian, to sell me on the idea of spending the last week of June standing in for him at a charity dog show, answering pet owners' questions at the "Ask The Vet" booth. I could practically hear his voice, floating over the phone as low and smooth as an FM disc jockey's: "I'm telling you, Popper, I'm talking Glamour--with a capital G." But in the pouring rain, the area's main east-west route, Sunset Highway, looked more like Main Street in a ghost town. Few cars crawled along the puddle-strewn thoroughfare, and fewer yet stood parked outside the pool-supply shops and imported-tile boutiques lining its edge. Even the scrubby trees and shrubs that dotted the two-lane highway looked pathetic. Gritting my teeth, I veered around a body of water only slightly smaller than Lake Superior. I was no stranger to the Bromptons. As a vet who makes house calls in my clinic-on-wheels, I routinely travel all over Long Island. That includes visiting clients who live on what's popularly called the South Fork, the lower of the two fish tails that make up the Island's eastern end. And Marcus had given me detailed directions for getting to the estate of someone named Wiener, the man who'd volunteered to put me up during the weeklong event. I'd followed his directions to the letter, but I still couldn't find Darby Lane. Of course, not being able to make out the street signs through the pouring rain didn't help. I clampe...

Product details

• Authors: Cynthia Baxter
• Publisher: Bantam Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 31.08.2004
• EAN: 9780553586428
• ISBN: 978-0-553-58642-8
• No. of pages: 400
• Dimensions: 105 mm x 175 mm x 27 mm
• Series: Reigning Cats and Dogs Mystery; Reigning Cats and Dogs Mystery
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature