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BUSH POODLES ARE MURDER
By: Lou Allin
In the third Belle Palmer mystery, the mid-forties realtor takes her friend and employee on a snowshoe trek. Miriam MacDonald brings along her spoiled toy poodle, a gift from her investment broker boyfriend. Later that week, Miriam discovers him bludgeoned to death in his condo. Although Miriam's fingerprints alone are found on the Inuit sculpture murder weapon, the collapse of his empire has ruined hundreds of people and made him many dangerous enemies.
Miriam is eventually charged with second-degree murder and, released on bail, rushes off to be with her ailing daughter. Belle, struggling to pull the pieces of a very complicated puzzle together, inherits the obnoxious poodle. With the dog along, she drives hours into the bush after an elusive clue involving stolen artwork only to find that Miriam has actually been kidnapped and that she herself has driven into the hands of a killer. In the biggest snow storm of the season, Belle and the poodle are abandoned in the remote woods to die of the cold.
They take refuge in an abandoned bear den, where Belle discovers that the puffball poodle is actually an intrepid killer of wildlife and a survivor as determined as Belle is herself to wait out the storm and brave the subzero temperatures. In a thrilling denouement, Belle trudges out of the bush to face down the kidnapper and murderer and save her friend Miriam from death and/or prison.
Belle Palmer is a realtor in Canada. Her best friend, Miriam, is dating Melibee Elphinstone. Belle doesn’t know much about him. Miriam talks Belle into joining them for dinner at Mel’s. Then Miriam finds Mel dead. She calls Belle, who rushes over. Unfortunately Miriam touched the Inuit sculpture that turns out to be the murder weapon. Belle calls her friend Steve, a police detective, over. Since Miriam has gone into shock, instead of arresting her, she is placed in a sanitarium to recuperate.
Belle takes in Miriam’s apricot mini-poodle, Strudel, until Miriam comes home and can take care of him herself. Her own dog, Freya, a shepherd, enjoys having a companion to play with.
Belle discovers that Mel had invested many women’s money and most of them had lost their life savings. Knowing that Miriam too had invested money, she got Jesse, another dear friend, to arrange for a lawyer for Miriam. But, Belle wasn’t sure that young Celeste could handle a murder trial if things should come to that. Then Steve is unavailable because he is under suspicion of taking bribes in drug investigations.
Belle is outraged. She thinks Brian, another detective, is behind these outlandish charges against Steve. Belle had scorned Brian’s amorous attempts. So, Belle begins investigating on her own. Belle meets Dorothy Grasslin at the sanitarium. She is a volunteer who comes to chat with the patients. Dorothy’s late husband was a P.I. so she asks to help Belle investigate Mel’s death. Miriam’s ex-husband Jack comes back to town to help with the investigation as well.
The only thing I had some trouble with was the terminology. It reminded me of some of the British mysteries. I could usually figure out what was meant, but I didn’t exactly know what they meant.
The other thing that I found to get a little old, was Belle’s referencing most things to an old movie she’d seen. I hadn’t seen many of them so the references didn’t mean much to me.
They get into many predicaments in their investigation. I like the various characters she has created. Belle is very believable and likeable. This being the first book I’ve read in this series, I only had the descriptions from this book to base my information on. Jack was well described and I thought he fit into the story well. I also like Jesse a lot.
I recommend this book and look forward to reading others in this series.
Mystery/Suspense
Review By: Ingram
Review By: Mysterybks
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BUSH POODLES ARE MURDER By: Lou Allin
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