Customer Reviews

Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof (Dixie Hemingway Mysteries, No. 4)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Dixie Hemingway is not your average heroine/sleuth. Unlike most leading ladies in mystery series, Dixie actually has a law enforcement background. After barely making it through a horrific tragedy, Dixie left her job as a deputy and is now a pet-sitter in Siesta Key. Despite her efforts to lead a simpler life, she continues to stumble across crime and dead bodies. Dixie is tough and independant, yet vulnerable after losing the two most important people in her life. This entry in the series really focuses on Dixie's need to reconnect with people and build relationships.
I love Dixie's character and her interaction with her pet-sitting "clients", the animals. The mystery was complex and surprising, especially as it related to Dixie's feelings toward the victim. One of the best parts/subplots of the book was the young son of Dixie's pet-sitting clients and his seizure assistance dog.
Overall, I loved this book and the ending leaves much room for new developments in the series. Dixie is growing and healing with every book and the author does a great job of taking the reader through the healing procees realistically, without being too melancholy. I can't wait for the next one!

Dixie Hemmingway is a wonderful, new voice to the soft-boiled mystery field. The characters are fully realized, with interesting back stories, and the "visiting" animals provide the impetus for the stories. Dixie is different, but believable. I cannot wait for the next installment. Plus, her description of the locale is so vivid.

After reading the first book in this series, I was hooked. Great character and I love the animal theme. She is a babysitter for cats, dogs and other animals. Simple read, but fun. I have kept up with the series and will keep buying these books when she writes a new one. I read everything from serious to lite fare. This is a great diversion from the more serious genre.If you like the Stephanie Plum books, you will enjoy this.

Blaize Clement has a way with words. Her descriptions are so evocative, you feel that you are right there on the spot, and in memory, it seems that you watched the movie of the story, rather than just reading words on a page. Although I love her mysteries, I can't help wishing she would just write a novel, a really long one.

Blaize Clement writes an engaging mystery. The main character, Dixie, is a pet sitter on Siesta Key who is still recovering from the death of her husband and child. She gave up her job as a cop to spend her time taking care of animals, a job which helps her build friendships, perhaps find love, and always find dead bodies.

She lives in a small apartment attached to the house she grew up in near the shore. Her brother and his long time partner, who are a firefighter and undercover cop respectively, live in the main house. Together the form a tight family unit who support each other through each murder investigation.

The story moves well, the characters are believable and diverse. One friend in wheelchair bound, another a senior in assisted living. This is real life...just full of dead bodies. Dixie is not super human, overly beautiful or smart, just a woman with a big heart trying to sort out her life. The theme of her life plays out well again the backdrop of the ocean and a mystery.

Elisa Robyn, author of The Way of the Well

[[ASIN:0312369557 Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof (Dixie Hemingway Mysteries, No. 4)]
I love what Blaize Clement has done with this fresh, fun mystery series. Yes, bad things happen but bad things happen in real life, also. Dixie is woman with a tragic past looking for a calm new future. She chooses a new career that would bring her joy only to find it leads to more death. I love this series and look forward to it continuing.

Another fun pet sitter novel by Blaize Clement. I love this series and the recurring characters. While her books are a quick read, they are neither too simplistic or too gory. I would recommend starting with the first book in the series to get the background of the characters and see their development.

Dixie IS likeable, and her lifestyle on the coast seems idyllic at times. But the author needs better editing or more imagination. There is way too much repetition in this book and the character development suffers. There are a few attractive friends and relatives who show up regularly, but we hear the same thing about them, e.g., someone has a great butt, she feels safer when her brother is home (preferably cooking for her), the clown plays the sax, the cat binks his eyes or flips his tail. I couldn't believe how many times she told us about changing her clothes, especially since her outfits are pretty much the same. There is even a paragraph about what she did in the shower, and no, it wasn't interesting. Every day she forgets to eat, but her complaints about starving just made me hungry. Would it be that hard for her to buy some cracker multipaks and water bottles to leave in her Bronco, (which is always referred to by its model name)?
And her plot hints are too obvious: I won't spoil, but she could have been more subtle about the clues: it just made Dixie look stupid to believe the lies of someone she liked. Usually sleuths are more worldly and skeptical. While it's great to learn things from a novel (alert dogs), she can't avoid sounding like a pamphlet, especially when she repeats the same info for new characters.
While there is something fun going on in these books, they are still too fluffy. Cut out the repetition and let Dixie have more depth.

I just finished this installment in the Dixie Hemingway series and while I liked it almost as much as Book One, I felt that it alternated between some serious,and interesting!, insights into Life and human nature, and like another reviewer commented-repetition and minutiae. There were some passages where I almost wanted to dog-ear the page to somehow make notes on it afterward; they were that GOOD. Just insights on life and feelings that rang so true with me personally. OTOH: yes we hear , repeatedly!- about the lawyer's GREAT behind, her hunger, her fatigue, her wardrobe changes, her brother's meals, her BRONCO. Enough already. Once or twice going in to that stuff would do it, for me. The thing is: Ms.Clement passed away about a month ago, so I started the first book, Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter, already knowing I have to drag these mostly-enjoyable books out as long as I can due to there being a forever-finite supply. That is how I feel about Sue Grafton books (although Sue is still among us , T.G). Overall, I liked the book and the mystery in this one was WAY better than the quasi-sci-fi mystery she used for Book 3.

I buy this series in hardcover, cannot wait for the mass market! The plot is tight, moves along at a hard-to-put-down pace. Dixie is a likeable heroine, with flaws. She has put tragedy from the past in perspective and is trying to move on. And as a retired petsitter, I very much enjoy that aspect of the series. I remember too well the 4 am start to my days, but do find it interesting that Dixie's nights aren't late as well. I often finished up at 10 pm. Guess I should have been solving murders instead of caring for all of those dogs!!