Monkey See, Monkey Die-Cynthia Baxter

Monkey See, Monkey Die
Cynthia Baxter
Bantam, Aug 2008, $6.99
ISBN: 9780553590371

Veterinarian Jessica Popper uses a mobile van to bring her practice to her patients. Currently she is snuggled in bed with her fiancé Nick Burby when the phone rings early in the morning. Veterinarian Erin Walsh, whom she has not seen in five years, asks to meet Jess that morning; the implication to Jess is Erin is deeply troubled and afraid. Erin fails to arrive at their meeting point.

Later that same day, Jess learns that Erin was murdered; strangled to death with scorpion venom in her system. When Jess makes a condolence call to Erin’s husband Ben, the vet is stunned to see that her late schoolmate lived in a tasteless McMansion. Ben has made a fortune as partner to Donald Drayton in a pet store chain Pet Empawrium. Jess, unable to resist being Jess, investigates only to find several people with motives to want Erin dead including Ben.

Pet lovers and amateur sleuth fans will enjoy MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DIE due to the antics of the humanistic pets; ironically when the killer traps Jess, her would be rescuer is four legged. With the wedding four weeks away, Jess suffers panic attacks over holy matrimony but not over deadly sleuthing. Fans will wonder whether the commitment phobic heroine will say I do.

Harriet Klausner