From Anthony and Agatha Award-winning author Elaine Viets—the thrilling mystery series about one woman trying to make a living... while other people are making a killing.
At the Pampered Pet Boutique in Fort Lauderdale, the dogs are treated better than the people—a fact not lost on Helen Hawthorne, who is working at the fabulous and furry canine salon where the wealthy dog owners need a muzzle more than their beloved pets.
And while some things shouldn’t happen to a dog, they do happen to humans—as Helen discovers when she drives out to the lavish home of Tammie Grimsby to deliver a freshly fluffed Yorkie, only to find Tammie stabbed to death with a pair of grooming scissors. In a panic, Helen speeds out of there—but she doesn’t report the murder, lest her own criminal past come to light.
But that doesn’t mean she can’t look into the stabbing on the sly. As Helen sniffs around both the boutique and a growing list of pure breed suspects, she knows that her bark will have to be worse than her bite if she’s going to put the collar on a killer…
Elaine Viets has written 34 mysteries in four series: the bestselling Dead-End Job series with South Florida PI Helen Hawthorne, the cozy Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper mysteries, and the dark Francesca Vierling mysteries. With the Angela Richman Death Investigator series, Elaine returns to her hardboiled roots and uses her experience as a stroke survivor and her studies at the Medicolegal Death Investigators Training Course. Elaine was a director at large for the Mystery Writers of America. She's a frequent contributor to Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and anthologies edited by Charlaine Harris and Lawrence Block. Elaine won the Anthony, Agatha and Lefty Awards.