Roger Bailey's Reviews > Hot Dog

Not having ever shown a dog in a dog show and not having ever attended a dog show I found all the discussion of dog shows to be kind of boring and there were a lot of dogs and dog shows were the setting in this novel. Fortunately there was more too, so the time I spent reading it was not a total loss. Melanie Travis is getting spooked when she realizes that she has a stalker and does not know who it is. She is not only being stalked, but she is having petty crimes perpetrated against her. Her wallet is stolen. Someone breaks into her house and steals a valuable dog. She receives harassing phone calls. Furthermore, she does not even know what the culprit has against her. The best part of the story is the ending in which the identity of the bad guy is revealed and she finds out just how dangerous that bad guy is. The ending is also the most annoying part even if it was exciting and suspenseful. I suppose that the author did not want to do too much foreshadowing because that would give the mystery away. I suppose that it is to be expected that the reader should be surprised and the anticipation of that surprise keeps one reading. But still! -- shouldn't the culprit have acted in character? If you spend the entire novel portraying a character as fairly normal and level headed then it is kind of jarring for that character to turn out to be some kind of wacko psychokiller. Oh well, at least it made for a surprise ending.