Customer Reviews

A Pedigree to Die For: A Melanie Travis Mystery

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I don't know anything about dog breeding, aside from what video snatches of dog shows I happen to catch on Animal Planet as I'm flipping channels. I don't even own a dog (apartment rules, sigh), so when I picked up A Pedigree to Die For I had hoped for at least enough coherent explanations of the breeding and show process to help me understand what was happening in the story without detracting too much from the mystery.

I'm happy to say Laurien Berenson, in this debut installment of Melanie Travis mysteries, does a great job of balancing suspense and milieu, about as well as Melanie herself balances single motherhood and sleuthing. It helps here that Melanie, the niece of a champion Standard Poodle breeder, knows little about dog breeding as well, and we learn with her.

Of course, while we're learning the difference between a Standard and a Toy Poodle, Melanie is changing hats at breakneck speed -- from mother to aggravated sister to compliant niece to sleuth to summer school teacher and back again. When a prized stud Poodle from Melanie's aunt's kennel is "dognapped", Aunt Peg convinces Melanie to go undercover and scour the dog breeding community for clues and paw prints.

A Pedigree to Die For is a fun, "cozy" read, where the mystery lies in the chase and not in gruesome killings. I'm definitely looking forward to reading more about Melanie going to the dogs in the future.

I checked this book out of the local branch library. When I first started reading it, I was lukewarm about it and thinking I would return it (I don't feel I have to finish something I am reading for fun if it isn't fun!). One night, I decided to give it a second chance. I ended up really enjoying it once I got past the first chapter. Now I am hunting down the rest of the series.

Melanie's husband left her when her son was 10 months old. She's been supporting herself and her son ever since. She's wary of men (her most recent lover just took off to Las Vegas and married a show girl), short on money, trying to be a good mom to her son, and doesn't get along with her relatives. In this book, her Uncle Max dies and his favorite stud dog is stolen. Melanie's forceful Aunt Peg convinces her to help her find the missing stud dog (actually, she wanted Melanie's feckless brother to do it but he declines). Along the way, Melanie learns about showing dogs, how her parents really died, and draws slightly closer to her remaining relatives. And her Aunt Peg fixes her up with a "stud"--a Mel Gibson look-alike.

I read some of the reviews of her other books and one reviewer complained because Melanie's son is dragged into the story and he whines alot. Don't listen to that reviewer unless you hate kids. Yes, Melanie's son is in all of the books in the series. She's a single mother! Of course he's going to be mentioned a lot. I have a son who is older now but Ms. Berenson is aptly descriptive of parenthood--the good and the bad.

I really like the way the series develops. I enjoy the characters of her Aunt Peg, her Aunt Rose, and her feckless brother Frank. As the series continues, more of the personality of these relatives is developed. It's like having your own less than perfect relatives drop in to cause problems.

Lastly, I'm a cat person, not a dog person. However, I have noticed the dog based mysteries are better than the cat based ones. The characters in Lillian Jackson Braun's "cat who" series are so shallow compared to Ms. Berenson's characters.

Being a fan of the Dog Lover's Mystery series by Susan Conant, I decided to try the first book in the Melanie Travis mystery series by Laurien Berenson. While the two series are quite a bit different in style (Conant's books are more cerebral and the mysteries more complex), both contain interesting characters and lots of information about dogs.

In this book, we meet Melanie, a single mother strapped for cash who agrees to help her Aunt Peg find a missing champion poodle stud, Beau. Her uncle was found dead of an apparent heart attack in the kennel area, and when he was found, Beau was gone. Being suspicious, Melanie's aunt is convinced that someone took the dog to use as a stud dog, and Melanie goes undercover at several dog shows to get information on the dog's whereabouts. Meeting an attractive exhibitor with a strong motive for stealing the dog, Melanie must stay focused on her task and when another death occurs, she steps up the investigation to find both a killer and the missing dog.

I enjoyed this first book for the plot (there were several twists and turns I never saw coming) and for the background information. Having only read this first book, I was expecting that Melanie would somehow actually get involved with showing dogs, and when that did not happen I was a bit disappointed. I was also disappointed that her wealthy Aunt Peg did not offer to pay her for the time spent looking for her missing dog since it is hardly a secret that Melanie is a struggling single mother. Other than these minor complaints, I enjoyed this book and look forward to more doggie adventures with Melanie. Enjoy!

A Cozy Lover

I picked up this book as a gift for my wife and made the mistake of reading the first few pages - I was hooked. Ms. Berenson writes an excellent mystery and has Standard Poodles and Poodle breeders down to a tee. This book is a good read for anyone but if you've been owed by or known a Standard Poodles you're in for a real treat.

I am currently on my 5th book in this series by Laurien Berenson and it has been terrific to witness how far she progresses as a writer with each new book. If you like dogs or especially if you are involved in showing dogs, this is a wonderful series.

Admittedly, "A Pedigree to Die For" started out a little slow in holding my interest. (But read it anyway, because the first few books really give you the "background" on the characters for the really great books later on!)

Melanie Travis is a 30-yr. old special needs teacher who is coping with the demands of raising a 4-yr. old son alone. Her divorced husband is not in the picture and neither are his child support payments!

When Melanie's Uncle Max dies under mysterious circumstances, a new friendship forms with Aunt Peg. The only problem is that the man Melanie suspects the most - Sam Driver, is the man that her Aunt Peg keeps trying to throw her together with!

While Melanie is trying to solve the murder, the reader is educated about the various aspects of dog competitions. I found it to be really inspirational. And no, Melanie does not get involved in showing dogs...yet.

I am so glad that I gave this series a chance!

As a dog lover and fan of cozy mysteries, this first installment in the Melanie Travis series caught my attention. And it had me turning page after page!!! "A Pedigree to Die For" has single mom Melanie and her poodle-breeding (and kinda stuffy) Aunt Peg in pursuit of the person responsible for murder and dog-napping (not sure which took more precedence). The book untangled some of the intricacies about dog shows and the people who are addicted to them.

Melanie is a very real, modern-day mom who juggles sleuthing with the needs of her five-year old son. Her character is like Goldy Schultz in Diane Mott Davidson's series (another winner, in my "book"), far more interesting than Joanne Fluke's or Mary Daheim's cast, and just a couple of notches below Janet Evanovich's inimitable Stephanie Plum. And THAT's saying something!

I'm so excited that this series has so many books. I'm going to unleash myself on them......

This book is the first in a series that features sleuth Melanie Travis and the dog show world. Since it is a first book, there is a lot of introductory material here. For instance, we get to meet Melanie and find out that she is a 30 year old divorced single mother whose latest boyfriend just married a showgirl in Vegas. She has a four year old son named Davey who is a typical handful of a four year old. She is a school teacher who is also looking for additional funds to be able to continue to afford living in Connecticut and it is summer time. Besides her son, her family also consists of her brother Frank, who is introduced as a do-nothing kind of person. Melanie's parents died some years before in a car crash, so we are told that her only other family is an uncle/aunt pair and another aunt who is a nun.

The mystery starts when her uncle Max has a heart attack in the middle of the night in the kennel where he is apparently checking on his prize Standard Poodles. Here we are introduced to the world of dog breeders and dog shows. Aunt Peg believes that Max's death is not accidental as the prize stud dog - Beau - is missing but she cannot get the police interested in the case. So, Frank is darfted, but since he is not particularly reliable, Melanie gets the call instead. Since Melanie knows nothing about dogs, Poodles, or dog shows and dog breeders, a big part of this volume is devoted to explaining some basic facts about the shows and how they work.

Peg has never liked her husband's sister - Rose. This dislike spills over when Rose reveals that she is leaving the convent and will marry a priest who is defrocking for the occasion. Now things start getting interesting as Peg has also taken a liking to a man by the name of Sam Driver and she is driving Melanie and Sam together. Melanie is on cruise control in her life and has no interest in gorgeous Sam - especially since Peg is so pushy about it; besides Melanie thinks that Sam might be involved in the crime!

So, one thing leads to another and we learn more about Melanie, her relatives, Sam, the dog show circuit, and dog breeders and breeding. Eventually, a murder is committed. Melanie also finds out about the root cause of the friction between Rose and Peg; more about how and why her parents died in that car crash; and manages to restore some kind of relationship in her fractious family.

By the end of the book, I was rooting for Melanie to solve the mystery, although by then, it was obvious who had done it and why. Nonetheless, the author managed to throw a good curve ball in at the end with some esoteric fact about dog breeding causing the bad guy's scheme to fall apart.

I really enjoyed this read and am looking forward to reading more about Melanie's adventures in the dog world - especially as we find out how much taken she is with the Standard Poodles and how much her son would love to have a pet!

Having read some of the other volumes in this series before, I would recommend that you pick this one up first as it establishes a lot of the background that is kind of assumed in the next volumes. This is especially true of the hilarious family situations. Oh, by the way, Max truly does die of a heart attack and is not murdered after all...

What a wonderful refreshing book. Kept me in my chair until I finished

I was getting really board in our local lib. and then I suddenly remembered a review on L.B. and decided to cheack out A Ped. and ever since I've collected the Mel. Travis series.

I was so happy to find a dog book (there are cats everywhere, but few authors do good dog books) but was soon disappointed. First, they were Poodles, one of my least favorite dogs. Second, it was about dogs shows, one of my least favorite `sports' (and I use that term very loosely here) - MUTTS RULE! Adopt your next dog from the pound! And lastly, it really wasn't all that well written. I didn't like the characters, the plot was skimpy and uninteresting, and I really wasn't drawn into the book at all. I will continue my search for a good dog series, and will almost certainly not read more of these.