Customer Reviews

Once Bitten: A Melanie Travis Mystery (Melanie Travis Mysteries)

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

 

 

In the latest Melanie Travis mystery, her fiance Sam has gone off to find himself after the death of this exwife and former friend, leaving Melanie in the lurch. On the bright side, her brother Frank is about the marry Bertie, dog handler and friend of Melanie. Faith finally gets her second and final major, finishing her championship(her daughter Eve looks like a winner also). In the midst of all this, Bertie wants Mel to help with her wedding plans. She's hired a flakey dog groomer/handler/rich kid to do all the arrangements, so Mel wonders why. Then, ex husband Bob shows up six weeks before the wedding, newly divorced from his very young bride, looking to get back together with Mel. Then the wedding planner disappears and her cottage on her mother's estate burns down. A young woman's body is found in the ruins. Is it Sara the wedding planner? Who burned the cottage? Mel is determined to find out. This is the best of all her mysteries. Ms. Berenson has a gift for giving the reader a good mystery and not losing the dog show background. This book will appeal to readers who have no idea what is involved in the dog world, the characters and mystery are that good. I learn a little more with each book. Hopefully, Mel's trip to the obedience ring as a spectator will lead her in that direction also.

If you read the previous Melanie Travis mystery, Unleashed, and you are like me, you were likely disappointed to see Melanie's fiance Sam take off for an undetermined time following his ex-wife's murder for reflection and what-not. Berenson, however, appeases us in Once Bitten by fulfilling the promise of a wedding -- that of Melanie's brother Frank.

While she is happy to see her brother maturing into a responsible businessman and committing himself to dog trainer/knockout Bertie Kennedy, Melanie is still nursing the wounds of her breakup. When Bertie's flighty wedding planner, part-time trainer Sara, mysteriously disappears, Melanie finds there is no time left to cry over spilt engagements when Bertie pleads with her to find Sara...and help plan a wedding while she's doing that.

Berenson injects quite a dose of romance in this installment when in the midst of all this chaos, ex-husband Bob returns to town, clearly bitten by the reconciliation bug. I have to admit, Melanie's divided loyalties between maintaining a stable home life for son Davey (who is ecstatic to have his father so close) and yearning for her missing true love made for better suspense than the actual mystery, the disappearance and even more bizarre reappearance of Sara, a character I came to like less and less as the story progressed.

I have enjoyed the Melanie Travis series since its inception, but with Once Bitten I fear Berenson may be hitting her stride. However, the weaknesses detected in the actual mystery (the aforementioned Sara and her conflicts with her even less likable parents...Melanie herself admits she can't stand them) are bolstered by the compelling subplot. I certainly hope for the next book the mystery will be a bit meatier (no pun intended).

How can a woman write a continuing series of mysteries about dogs/dog shows without repeating herself, yet always remain fresh and a real page-turner? THAT is the mystery behind all of the Laurien Berenson books and this is no exception.

"Once Bitten" is a wonderful book by a truly talented writer. (I find it rather fun to try keeping them in chronological order, by how old Melanie Travis's son is in each book...I'm kind of curious in that way!) At any rate, "Once Bitten," you'll find it hard to stop at just one Berenson book until you have them all and excitedly await her next mystery.

Life is finally come together for dog show owner Melanie Travis. Even though she was supposed to be getting married during Christmas, she has come to grips that this is not going to happen. Her fiancé left for an unspecified time to find himself. She is delighted that her brother is getting married to Bertie, another person involved dog shows, in six weeks but she is horrified that her ex husband is going to be around for the same month and a half trying to win her back.

When Bertie's wedding planner Sara disappears leaving behind an ominous note, she asks Melanie for help in tracking down the missing woman. Before they can get very far in their inquiries, Sara's cottage burns down, which leaves behind the remains of a skeleton that can only be identified by dental records. When Melanie and company learn that arson caused the fire and that Sara remains alive though still out of sight, the group increases their efforts to find answers.

ONCE BITTEN, like the rest of the Melanie Travis mysteries, takes readers into the colorful and exciting world of dog competitions. Long time fans of this amateur sleuth series will be ecstatic that Faith finally won enough shows to be considered Champion by the AKC. Laurien Berenson has written another fine work in this delightful mystery series.

Harriet Klausner

Bob is back in town and there are wedding bells a'ringin! The only negative part of this is that the wedding bells are not for Melanie and Sam - they are for Frank and Bertie. Sam, as a matter of fact, has disappeared: he decided that he needed to go "find himself". So, Melanie is unsure of what to do and where to go with her life. Which is when Bob decides to come back from Texas after divorcing his 20 year old wife and try to rekindle the romance with Melanie. Part of this book deals with these complications in the love life of Melanie Travis and the turmoil caused by all of this.

The other parts of the book deal with the mystery. You see, one of Bertie's friends is a bit of a flighty person whom Bertie decides to help by hiring her to be the wedding coordinator for Bertie's wedding. Almost immediately following the beginning of the work - and with only six weeks remaining until the wedding itself - Sara Bentley disappears. Then, a woman's body is found in Sara's home which had just burned down. Bertie is frantic, she asks Melanie to help, and off to the races we go!

The third part of this book has to do with Melanie's dog Faith and her quest to win enough points in the dog show circuit to become a Champion. As is usual with these mysteries featuring Melanie Travis, the dog show circuit and the people and personalities involved with it provide the background story to a lot of the action. Faith and the other dogs are very key contributors to the mayhem.

So, how do these three story lines mesh together in one book? Very well. This is a very readable, very enjoyable, member of the series with all the puzzles and interaction well thought out and logical. All that is, but for one last one. The last puzzle in this book is solved in a very thematic way for the series, but in a way that is completely out of character for one of the main characters of the story. That is why I gave this book only 4 stars. Nonetheless, I think that all of Laurien Berenson's fans will really enjoy this book and be looking forward to the next installment. I certainly will be!

Melanie Travis tries to deal with her disappearing fiance when her future sister-in-law's wedding planner, Sara, also disappears and Melanie's ex-husband suddenly reappears and wants to play in Melanie's life. Melanie settles for sleuthing to find the missing Sara--only to discover that plenty of people want her to stay missing. They just might get their wish when Sara's house burns down and a woman's body is found inside.

What's best about this novel is the dogs. Melanie shows her standard poodle Faith and is working on 'finishing' her, i.e., achieving champion rank. When Melanie goes to the dogs, ONCE BITTEN goes well indeed. When Melanie fixates on men, I was tempted to roll my eyes--I mean, get on with it.

The mystery plays a third fiddle to Melanie's dog problems and her men problems. Fortunately, she doesn't have to do much to solve it.

Author Laurien Berenson's light tone, her wonderful descriptions of the dog shows and of dog people, and of the relationship between Melanie, her son, her aunt, her dogs, and her future sister-in-law make ONCE BITTEN a pleasure to read despite its flaws.

If books were dogs, then some weighty political and historical tomes would be hard-working police and security breeds like German Shepherds--very worthy, but sometimes one is in the mood for the kind of dog that does amusing tricks and then cuddles up afterward. This charming book seems like an engaging Toy Poodle--light, frothy and absolutely entertaining--but it keeps a bulldog grip on the reader until one reaches the end.

Melanie Travis is a single mom, a teacher and she shows her Standard Poodle, Faith, without the services of a professional handler. In this book, Melanie is blue because her fiance, Sam, has gone off to "find himself" and she's trying to help her brother Frank and his beautiful fiancee "Bertie" find their wedding planner, the frivolous and unreliable Sara who goes off for the weekend and vanishes. Things become complicated when Sara's cottage burns down and the body of a woman is found inside.

Melanie's peace of mind is further upset when her ex-husband Bob bounces back into town and starts trying to act like a good father. When he actually cleans out the garage, Melanie realizes he seriously wants to get back with her. She starts remembering why she married him...

Light entertainment with a bite! There are dark undertones to this mystery that suggest this author could invest a little more depth into her characters, but this has to be characterized as doggone entertaining!

ONCE BITTEN brings back most of the familiar characters from previous Berenson tales (with a puzzling omission -- what happened to Aunt Peg's Douglas? He's missing in action here), and moves their relationships along nicely. However, there's so much going on -- the impending marriage of main character Melanie's brother and ravishing trainer Bertie (short for Alberta), the reappearance of Melanie's ex-husband, the move into judging for Aunt Peg, "finishing" Melanie's poodle's championship -- that the mystery seems more of an afterthought than the main event. Also, there's not much mystery -- the pointers to the guilty parties are pretty pointed. As always, the dog show segments are the most realistic, but the Christmas Eve chapter at the end is well worth the price of admission.