The usual twee story, but I learned all about gaited Saddlebred horses and that W. Shatner is an expert. A little too much political opinionating for a book this slender, but a soothing story nevertheless, with all put right in the end. ( )

Mary Minor "Harry" and Fair Haristeen have re-tied the knot. This time around, instead of a traditional honeymoon they choose to attend the saddlebred horse show in Shelbyville, Kentucky.

Pretty much from the start, strange things happen. An heirloom pin goes missing from one of Harry's friends. Then a prize mare disappears into thin air. When a murder occurs things really become serious.

Ex-spouses, volatile trainers, jealousy, deception can be found among the suspects.

Mrs. Murphy, Tee Tucker and Pewter are on the prowl to solve these happenings. The question is whether their humans will see what the animals see and come to the same conclusion.

Told from the perspective of the animals, it is an enviable series. There is humour along with seriousness of solving the crimes. ( )

Since I came in late to the series it took a bit to get straight who was who, animal or people.
An enjoyable mystery. The monkey was like I've heard pet monkeys are. ( )

couldn't get into this at all ( )

Mysteries that include information about some topic -- saddlebred horses, in this case, don't bother me even when it's about an interest I don't share. I like learning new things. This series has gotten rather preachy, but that's okay on the printed page. You can always skim over that part if you don't happen to agree with the authors. I tried to listen to an audio version of one of the later books and the preaching got me to return it to the library after one CD. (The bit about taxes and horse breeding rang a bell because I worked in Civil Service for about 25 years and experienced all too often policies/regulations written by persons who didn't know enough to make them sensible and didn't have sense enough to consult the persons who knew.)

The theft of an heirloom pin was extremely easy to figure out, the murders less so. I liked the movie star, especially the scene where she told off someone who really had it coming. The animals were fun, although Miss Nasty didn't capture my fancy. I'm one of those mystery fans who is also an sf/fantasy/supernatural fan, so the fact that we were able to understand the animals' conversations, although the human characters couldn't, was fine by me.

One of the things I appreciate about this series is that it includes one of those old-fashioned cast lists. Why, however, did the important animal characters cast list leave out Cookie?

The dust jacket shows the same cat silhouette since book one, only in different colors with differently colored backgrounds. Oh, well, at least it's better than a cat mystery cover with no cat on it. ( )