Bad to the Bone

Bad to the Bone is the third book in a cozy mystery series called the Barkery and Biscuits Mysteries. It is the first one in the series that I have read.

The back cover blurb summarizes the book as follows:  "Veterinary technician Carrie Kennersley, owner of the Barkery and Biscuits Bakery for dogs, is reluctant to sell her recipes to pet food manufacturer VimPets. Jack Loroci, a VimPets representative, assures Carrie that it would be a great opportunity to grow her business. His promising new relationship with Carrie's friend Billi Matlock doesn't hurt his cause. But the budding romance takes a bad turn when Wanda Addler, another VimPets employee, sets her sights on Jack. After threatening to ruin Jack's career if he doesn't give her what she wants, Wanda is found dead. Jack and Billi are put at the top of the suspect list, and Carrie is doggone determined to rescue them from a life behind bars."

My initial impression was that something was lacking in the story but I wasn't sure what it was. The murder occurred early in the story.  The main character/amateur sleuth then had conversations with several people over the space of 100 pages concerning whether she should investigate the murder. I thought that was odd since this is a cozy mystery and the reader knows that the amateur sleuth is going to investigate. It was a waste of 100 pages. Once the investigation began, the amateur sleuth only performed witness interviews in her investigation. Again, I thought that was odd. Usually there is back story written in to the plot as well as research being done by one of the characters and an "aha" moment on the part of the main character. I finally realized that there was only dialogue in this novel. There was no other writing technique used to break up all that dialogue.

In addition, there were no clues pointing to who the killer was interspersed throughout the novel. There were no red herrings used either. The relationships between Carrie and her employees were not written into the story as you would normally see in this type of a cozy so the Barkery and Biscuit Shop connection to the plot was not fully formed. I thought that the final resolution to the murder wasn't plausible. Perhaps it's because of the aforementioned issues but in any event it was not a satisfying resolution of the murder.

The plot summary was interesting but there were too many shortcomings in Bad to the Bone. 2 out of 5 stars.