Reading: PAW AND ORDER - V.M. Burns

Prose (Story): Book four in V.M. Burns's popular Dog Club cozy mystery series finds Chattanooga's newest amateur sleuth, Lilly Echosby, donning her deerstalker again when uber-rich dog aficionado Archibald Lowry is murdered at her friend Dixie's charity event (which happens to take place at the museum Lilly works for), and Lilly subsequently becomes custodian of his favorite pet poodle ... whom other, more malevolent forces also have their sights on.

Don's (Review): Somehow, some way, I bonded with Lilly Ann Echosby from the minute I met her on the page. I get the same warm, hot-chocolatey feels reading her novels that I get every time I watch an old episode of "Murder, She Wrote" - and actually, feel just as squishy for her friends like Dixie and BJ and Dr. Morgan, daughter Stephanie and potential son-in-law Joe, and of course Red - Lilly Ann's cop boyfriend. All of the above, happily, are featured here along with a slew of new suspects - er, characters - and the mystery surrounding whodunnit in the stabbing murder of Archibald Lowry is well-paced as Lilly, along with her visiting daughter and gang of Watson-like friends, unpeels the layers of what ends up being the darker-than-expected eccentric millionaire's past, while getting closer to the truth. Indeed, another hallmark of the series is that the books are short, quick reads, trimmed of fat so that the mystery moves along swiftly, clues and red herrings leading us - in this case - to one of the better, more suspenseful finales I've read in a cozy in awhile. A solid mystery, but with this series what makes me always come back as much as the puzzle is the extremely likable, life-like cast of characters in Lilly Ann and her world; the humor and heart they bring that makes you wish they were friends of yours in the real world.  4/5 stars

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