A Catered Doggie Wedding: A Mystery with Recipes

In Crawford’s routine 17th mystery featuring Bernie and Libby Simmons, owners of A Little Taste of Heaven, a bakery cum catering company in Longely, N.Y. (after 2020’s A Catered Book Club Mystery), the sisters agree to cater a wedding reception for two eight-month-old golden retrievers and their handlers. Jennie, who shares the dogs with her boyfriend, believes the ceremony would be great publicity for the doggie day-care center she’s about to open. Those involved in planning the event soon start receiving threatening notes, and the harassment escalates to vandalism. Then the contractor who’s working on the day-care center is murdered, and evidence starts stacking up against Jennie. She hires Bernie and Libby, who have a local reputation as sleuths, to clear her name. Their retired police officer dad, who’s writing an article about a bank robbery from decades ago, assists them. The old bank robbery turns out to have a connection to a recent bank robbery—and the murder. This meandering cozy offers enough suspects, but there’s too much repetition of information, and the duo’s snarky exchanges get a tad tired. Crawford has done better. Agent: Evan Marshall, Evan Marshall Agency. (July)