One of my favourite finds of last year was Antony Johnston’s Dog Sitter Detective series. A cosy series with a wonderfully feisty main character, and being a dog-sitter, the cast of cute side-kicks is ever changing.
Gwinny Tuffel is a retired actress “of a certain age”, but costs of living and an inherited property to maintain, she’s back out of retirement and looking for work. Between acting jobs, she’s taken to dog-sitting for extra income.
In this third book of the series, she’s combining both of her jobs. With filming taking place on a gender-swapped version of Dracula up in Yorkshire, Gwinny is headed North. When not on the film set, she’s walking a friend’s Jack Russell terrier. Until the friend has a fall and is hospitalised, then the dog has to join the cast and crew on set. The drama doesn’t stop there, as the film’s leading man is found dead in dramatic fashion, inside the leading actress’ trailer, with a stake through his heart. Film star Juliette Shine is a fabulously overly dramatic antagonist, and having played a detective, is insistent that she can solve this case.
I love cosy crime set in theatres and film. It ramps up the theatrical nature of the crime, and you never know whose acting is limited to the stage or set which causes challenges for our sleuth. Gwinny is a wonderful character, equal parts ridiculous and sensible. I kind of want to be her when I grow up.
As always, the writing is top quality and so hard to put down to get on with other things. But real life can wait, Gwinny is on the case.
Thank you to the author, the publishers Allison & Busby and Netgalley for this digital advanced review copy for review.
The Dog Sitter Detective Plays Dead is out on January 23rd.
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