Book Review: Puppy Peril

Title: Puppy Peril 

Author: Hazel Smith

Date: 2025

Quote: "Monty...was already past her knees, and, at the rate he was growing, he'd outweigh her soon."

Maid Ivy, who was brought up by grandparents who ran a cleaning service and just loves to keep everything clean, has adopted the Great Dane who will be her companion in later adventures. She's been hired by the La Fontaine Hotel, where the first published book in her series took place, but has yet to start work there. To fill the days between being hired and going to work, she volunteers to clean a local animal shelter. She becomes acquainted with lots of quirky, likable older people. She also finds a dead body on the street...and evidence of a dognapping operation. Is it possible that the two things are connected?

Partial spoiler: Monty will lead Ivy and us readers into the foul core of the dognapper's den, the hidden side animal rescuers can have. And my suspension of disbelief was jiggled. When people Go Wrong, they can of course go altogether wrong. Someone who is humane toward mongrels, Chihuahuas, and Great Danes can run a horrible puppy mill breeding stolen pit bulls and selling them to people who want to sell tickets to dogfights. But isn't it more common in real life that people who Go Wrong make small compromises, that a person who wants to support a shelter for other kinds of dogs might be breeding stray pit bulls for resale and telling perself that at least the dogs are humanely treated while they're in per care--and that individuals who take responsibility for a lot of animals are most likely to disappoint the animals because money or illness prevents their doing what they need to do? Well...the puppy mill person in this book is a unique character. Such people exist in the real world but they are, mercifully, unusual.

I might have been happier with a different plot but I enjoyed spending a few more hours with Monty and Ivy. So, if you like a mystery where one murder can be solved by observation without waiting for it to become a series, where the pretty girl is more interested in work than in sex, where the dog is part of the plot without having any supernatural powers, will you.