Reading: HERE COMES SANTA PAWS - Laurien Berenson

Book 24 in the long-running Melanie Travis cozy mystery series is a slim, quick Christmas-time mystery that finds wife/mother/poodle enthusiast Melanie literally called in to help when her close friend Claire finds a dead body. In the rundown gatehouse of an even more rundown estate, Claire's personal shopper client Lila Moran lies dead in her living room, a bullet in her chest. Right away, even during the police's questioning of her friend, Melanie suspects Claire isn't being entirely forthcoming ... and sure enough, soon Claire admits to Melanie that a background check she did on Lila revealed the woman had no history going more than five years back. Melanie sets out to get to the bottom of the mystery, digging into Lila's past even as she puts herself into danger via a killer ready to strike again if needed, in a mystery that, while definitely set in an around Christmastime, never feels 100% fully-rooted in the holiday season; the mystery simply takes place during the holidays, but in no way feels tied into it (also the lack of any snow, oddly enough, felt a bit disconnected from wintertime). That said, one think I truly appreciated, as a new reader to both Berenson and Travis, was Berenson's skilled economy of words that immediately introduced the murder in the story and kept things moving without lapsed for long exposition or description. Melanie's questioning of one suspect leads her to another, and she simply follows the trail, everything tied up neatly and quickly even once the killer was exposed. Even though I guessed who that killer was from the character's introduction on  the page, it never felt like a letdown even when I was proven correct, the book is that smoothly written and takes you on the ride to solve the puzzle with Melanie so easily. Maybe a longer novel would have benefited the mystery more, via the addition of other suspects or a few red herrings (also, the ending was a bit anti-climactic), but for a short,fluffy-light Christmas cozy Berenson delivers exactly that, via her "get in, tell your story, get out" writing style that works well here. Also worth mentioning is the way the author, even through her economy of words, still in so short a novel makes Melanie and Aunt Peg and all the other characters so real on the page. Kudos for that alone!  4/5 stars

NOTE: I received a free ARC of this title from  NetGalley and the publisher,  in exchange for an honest review.