Customer Reviews

Raining Cats and Dogs (Melanie Travis Mysteries)

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

 

 

Seeking a way to escape the influence of her dominating aunt, Melanie Travis, and her champion poodle Faith, sign up for dog obedience classes. The class is a hotbed of rumor and past affairs, but they do one good thing--they visit a senior housing center weekly to let the residents visit with their dogs. Meanwhile, Melanie's life is getting very complicated with a new husband, her seven-year-old son, and five poodles living in a very small house, plus a job where one of her fellow teachers seems unduely interested in a well developed, but still 12-year-old seventh grader. Then there's the sexy neighbor with cats and a permanently missing husband.

On her first visit to the senior housing campus, one of the guests dies--and the police discover it is murder. Recognizing Melanie's history of solving mysteries, her fellow obedience school members urge her to discover the killer. With a bit of pressure, and some help, from her aunt, Melanie sets off to do just that.

Author Laurien Berenson maintains a light tone, provides lots of information about dog training and showing, if not so much about the mysteries she's solving, and recognizes the importance of personal life in her sleuth. Indeed, half the fun is watching Melanie solve mysteries between running around with her dogs, trying to keep her son entertained, exploring the sexy side of her new marriage, and dealing with an overcrowded life.

RAINING CATS AND DOGS is an enjoyable story. I would have liked to see a bit more sleuthing and mystery mixed in with the 'life of Melanie Travis,' but that didn't keep RAINING from being an enjoyable story. Dog-lovers, in particular, will appreciate Berenson's attention to the interaction between dogs and their human-companions.

For a woman who likes order and routine, Melanie Travis' life has dissolved into chaos ever since she married Sam because he moved into her home so that her son wouldn't have to change schools and neighborhoods. Unfortunately her six room house was not big enough to hold two adults, one active boy, and five standard poodles. While they are looking for a bigger house, Melanie escapes one night a week to the South Avenue Obedience Club with her dog Faith.

The club members bring their dogs to the Winston Pumpernill Nursing Home in Greenwich so the residents can play with the canines. One of the members of the club Paul Livingston has his great-aunt living there and he loves her dearly. Melanie can understand why when she meets her but that initial introduction is their last meeting because someone murdered her while the canine club was there. The leader of the club challenges Melanie to find the murderer knowing that she solved other homicides so once again she takes up the mantle of a sleuth.

Laurien Berenson can always be counted on to write a thoroughly enjoyable who-done-it. RAINING CATS AND DOGS is more humorous than some of the other books in the series as Melanie tries to deal with too many people and dogs in a small house, a new sexy neighbor whose husband is always on the road, and looking for a house that will meet everyone needs especially her canine caper crew while trying to find a murderer. The characters in this series continue to change and evolve making it impossible for fans to grow bored.

Harriet Klausner

I love this series and look forward to every new book - my sister and I both read the Melanie Travis books and love them! We both show dogs (not poodles) so can relate to all the dog show references - most of which are accurate! This is a very entertaining series and I hope Ms.Berenson writes lots more Melanie Travis mysteries.

I found this book to be tedious. It spent most pages on things that had nothing to do with the mystery. I don't care to hear about Melanie's problems with the cats next door. These seem to be the author's opinions and are the ignorant reactions of a cat-disliker. We never hear how the neighbor enjoys hearing 5 poodles barking at all hours and it isn't brought forward that it is dangerous for outdoor cats to wear collars. Hmmm .. I seem to have wandered onto my own soapbox! Forgive me.

The best parts of the story are about the dogs. I enjoy reading about animals and the dog sections are the most vividly written. It's a pleasure to read about poodles and learn their characteristics.

Speaking in general, I think the cozy mystery subgenre has developed a problem. There is only so many words allowed in a genre book and in a themed cozy myster there has to be theme information, coziness, and a mystery. My observation is that usually one get short shrift. The mystery is shunted aside to make room for the family scenes and the expert info. Or the expert info is so detailed that it's more like reading a specialty magazine than a mystery (food mysteries seem to be particularly vulnerable to this weakness). Or the book is really a continuation of a family saga and the mystery and expertise are tucked in around the edges.

Do I have a solution? No. I would say that some of these authors might be better off jettisoning the mystery and writing the theme or family books that seem to come more easily to their talents. I suppose the problem is that there isn't a pre-set genre for such books and therefore they are easier to market if a mystery is jammed in.

So we get half-hearted cozies such as this one.

I was looking for a mystery book and came across this book. I like how Berenson keeps you guessing until the end. You think you know who committed the crime, but she leaves you with a little doubt. Berenson adds humor with the antics of her son and Aunt Peg and a little romance with Sam. This book has a little of everything. I like her mystery books, because they are not gruesome as some mysteries are.

I have always really enjoyed the books in this series. That made my disappointment w/this one all the more--well, disappointing. The obedience class members were thrown in and never really developed. The "old" people at the nursing home were treated in much the same way. The new characters were static and two-dimensional. Add to that what seems to have been the obligatory sexual innuendoes and I just did not find this book as enjoyable as the previous ones. If this book were the first one read, I doubt that I would have bought another. As it is, I'll hope this was just a glitch.

Not being a cat-lover, I was unimpressed with Berenson's play to capture a corner of the cat-mystery market. And I couldn't help but wonder if one of the new characters introduced in this book--an underdressed but overly endowed (with misbehaving cats) neighbor with a curiously absent husband--will reappear. Perhaps as a love interest or tormentor for Melanie's ex-husband, who now lives in Melanie's old house.

This book--like so many of Kensington Press's--suffers from lazy editing. On page 122, for example, one minor character, a habitue of the posh nursing home that figures in the mystery, mourns the loss of her large ("big as a grape") ruby ring. But by page 283, readers wonder if Melanie's hanging around with old people throughout the book has affected HER memory, because she refers to the character's missing "ruby brooch." I know, I know, this is nitpicking and not germane to the mystery. But the truth is, when I read this kind of ephemera (and I do all the time), the most fun of all is not the light-weight mysteries, but the search for these kind of hidden gems. Unfortunately, Kensington makes this game almost too easy for the reader. I wish this press would better serve its writers and spend a little more time, effort and cash on proper editing. But then I'd be out a game!

I loved this latest in the Melanie Travis series...as always a great read and funny too.