SHOW ME THE BUNNY by Laurien Berenson

‘Melanie Travis’ is the central character in a long-running amateur sleuth series featuring Poodles. She lives in Connecticut, where she now shares her life with her kind husband Sam, two lively young boys and several dogs. If you have not read the earlier books, SHOW ME THE BUNNY is as good a place as any to start.

Melanie has been enjoying her first Poodle, Faith, for ten years at this point, and the happy and well-trained ex-show dog goes almost everywhere with her. At Easter, Melanie gets talked into running an Easter egg hunt for some kids, but there are unfortunate circumstances. The children live with their moms in a women’s shelter. One of Melanie’s aunts, Rose, who left a convent, still does good works, and she and her husband are running the shelter, which is in a donated town house. When a tragedy strikes unexpectedly, it looks as though the shelter may have to close.

Melanie’s brand of investigating includes some online research and a lot of conversations. She’s a part-time teacher so she is comfortable meeting people, and over Easter she only had family fun lined up. Aunt Rose thinks she’s the perfect person to investigate the situation.

On previous occasions, Melanie’s senior Aunt Peg, a dog show judge respected by the fraternity, has played a considerable role in the stories. Bringing in Rose, quite a different personality and not a dog owner, changes the story, so readers presumably won’t feel it’s repetitive. However, the ladies have a lot in common, bossiness for a start. We meet some contrasting characters and a gentle Italian greyhound. I enjoyed the mystery, but it felt quite short, once I got past the discussions about why Rose and Peg didn’t get along. At the end I found two chapters of a new mystery spinoff, which is good and bad, in that this looks like a fun read with lots of dogs, but it made the current book all the shorter.

Women in need of refuge is a serious issue for society, and I am pleased that Laurien Berenson has addressed this, while keeping her central character Melanie in a stable relationship. The contrast is strong and some useful suggestions are provided. And if you just want a relaxing read about raising a family, with a mystery to solve at Easter, SHOW ME THE BUNNY works for this too.

Melanie Travis is gifted at raising prize-winning Standard Poodles, not standing in as the Easter Bunny. But when March in Connecticut brings daffodils and dead bodies, she’ll need to hop into action—and fast . . . Aunt Rose already has a strike against her for not being too fond of dogs—or Aunt Peg. But Melanie still agrees to organize Easter festivities at Gallagher House, the new women’s shelter opened by the stern former nun, even if it takes all the jellybeans in Greenwich to sweeten the arrangement. No sooner does Melanie arrive to dye multicolor eggs and stuff baskets, than she learns devasting news about Beatrice Gallagher, the respected benefactor of the estate. Beatrice has fallen to her death, and the circumstances are shocking . . . No one can say why or how charitable Beatrice got pushed into an early grave. Yet for a supposedly warm and generous philanthropist, rumors have her pinned as an overbearing manipulator who used money to control the unfortunate few trapped in her inner circle. Facing an uncertain future as danger lurks around Gallagher House, Melanie and Aunt Rose must tolerate each other’s company long enough to discover the truth about Beatrice’s true nature and identify a vengeful killer—before another person’s idyllic spring break becomes a serious nightmare . . .