Customer Reviews

The House on Bloodhound Lane

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In this, the second of Virginia Lanier's suspenseful and entertaining series, we're treated to more adventures of Jo Beth Sidden, feminist, good ol' girl and woman of much guile. Her cleverness and resourcefulness rise to the occasion in a number of subplots, but the main mystery concerns the search for a man who's been buried alive. Old friends from "Death in Bloodhound Red" return, and we meet new ones, including a love interest for Jo Beth (a relationship that starts off most inauspiciously and hilariously). The real hero, however, is a blind-from-birth bloodhound puppy of exceptional brilliance named Bobby Lee. He's a truly lovable character, delightfully portrayed. Dog people and readers who like a Southern setting and/or a strong female protagonist should not miss this series.

As Lanier did in her first book, she grabs you and pulls you into the swamp with feminist Jo Beth. Her description is remarkable making you feel a dog leash yanking on your arm, or a mosquito biting you. This book has everything you could ask for, action, romance, mystery, and deception.

I picked up this book at the grocery store because I was desperate[nothing to read!],what a pleasant surprise!Since I had never heard of the author or this series of 'bloodhound'books,I gambled 6 bucks and I won!

The heroine,Jo Beth Sidden,has a bloodhound training complex with assorted interesting employees and different plot lines make the book interesting from beginning to end.

I will be definitly be reading the rest of the books in this series!

Kim Vei

I have read all of Virginia Lanier's books (date of review 8/7/00). All five are full of excitement and suspense as well as romance and humor.

Being a dog lover myself, I was fascinated by the nuances of caring for, training, and working with bloodhounds.

I just finished her last book in the series and I will sorely miss Jo Beth and her adventures into the swamp with her magnificent dogs. I am eagerly awaiting the next one!

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves dogs, the south, and fiesty heroines. This is the first Virginia Lanier book I've read, but it won't be the last! I'm going to buy the rest of her books as soon as I can find them.

You'll fall in love with Bobby Lee and wish you had a bloodhound of your own.

The idea is different enough to rate 5 stars but the stories and characters are also wonderful.I was very glad to find this as a series, which I love reading, and I hope the author continues the bloodhound books.

"The House on Bloodhound Lane," the second in the "Bloodhound series," has confirmed it. Virginia Lanier has just zoomed to the top of "My Favorite Mystery Writers'" list!! (Even better than Evanovich's Stephanie Plum, which is saying a LOT!!)

I can't believe that I have just now discovered Virginia Lanier's great characters! Jo Beth Sidden is a feminist with an attitude and such a wonderful character! I love how she is always trying to improve and "fix" her friends' lives (because her own is so often in such chaos)!

I couldn't put this book down. It has SO many intricate sub-plots and I love the dialogue. It is great to read so much about the dogs as well. I especially liked how Lanier took the readers back to Bobby tracking Mary Ann.

Lanier is such a gifted and intelligent writer to devise methodically the reasoning that spews out of Jo Beth's character.

I've already started "tracking" down the hardback editions of Lanier's books. They are keepers. Other mysteries that I've rated as 5 stars are good, but they don't come close to Lanier's Bloodhound Series! She is THAT GOOD!

This is *NOTE* the second book of a series. It is well done enough that you can pick up the series here but it will be more enjoyable if you start from the beginning. The books are; 1996-Death in Bloodhound Red, 1997-The House on Bloodhound Lane, 1998- A Brace of Bloodhounds, 1999-Blind Bloodhound Justice, 2000-Ten Little Bloodhounds. I'm not sure why we don't have books for 2001 and 2002, but after you read the first book and then run out and buy the next four that continue without dropping the pace and excitement, you'll mourn the gap in the series. I have a review in on the first book that gives you an idea about the series, which I won't repeat.

In this second book Virginia Lanier develops the themes she began in the first book. As I mentioned she does an excellent job of giving you a wealth of knowlege about the south, the Okenofee swamp, and bloodhounds as trackers (not hunters). You learn still more and critically important, she manages to repeat some of the old knowlege such that you don't lose vital bits if you start at the second book, but is still interesting if you read the first one. Instead of boring solliques you get inserts that go with the action that end before you get bored, such as when she is explaining something to someone as opposed to an off the story line that reminds you that you are reading a book. As with the first book, I not only read it till it was done (about 3am on a night I had to get up and go to work at 7am) even though I swore to myself that really truely I was not going to do this like I did with the first one. Then once I read it through I went back and enjoyed a leisury read to pick up the information and the beauty of the story, after I happily reread the first book for the third time.

I've checked out a lot of the information here with a friend that is from Georgia and so far she is 100% on accuracy. Since just because an author makes something sound believable doesnt mean it is, and I'm primary a science fiction reader so I'm always wary. The only difference is my friend knows bloodhound hunting dogs, but no trackers. But she did verify (and I can't remember which book it was in) where a monster gator was climbing a fence to get at the puppies, that while she doesn't know of any examples of them climbing fences, there are many examples of them getting into fenced yards where no one can figure out how they got in.

Additionally in this book the long feared release of her ex-husband from prison happens, and I really enjoyed Jo Beth's revenge on the prison system for not telling her BEFORE. I'm not going to say what happens or if she found out 'in time' because I HATE a review that blows the plot by telling you the entire book like a bookreport. I'm going to let you wonder.

I'm a (Southern, female) dog trainer who also loves mysteries. How could I resist? Yet I have been very disappointed in some other mystery books/series that featured dogs. Not with this one! Everything reads true - the dogs and the trainer's relationship with them, the language, the rural Southern culture and especially Jo Beth Siddons, the fiesty feminist heroine. The plot is compelling, with several mysteries, interesting relationships and Jo Beth's own brand of justice. But you don't need to like dogs to enjoy this book ... you just need to like a really well-written mystery.

In this, the second of Virginia Lanier's suspenseful and entertaining series, we're treated to more adventures of Jo Beth Sidden, feminist, good ol' girl and woman of much guile. Her cleverness and resourcefulness rise to the occasion in a number of subplots, but the main mystery concerns the search for a man who's been buried alive. Old friends from "Death in Bloodhound Red" return, and we meet new ones, including a love interest for Jo Beth (a relationship that starts off most inauspiciously and hilariously). The real hero, however, is a blind-from-birth bloodhound puppy of exceptional brilliance named Bobby Lee. He's a truly lovable character, delightfully portrayed. Dog people and readers who like a Southern setting and/or a strong female protagonist should not miss this series.