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Returning to her hometown as an adult, Priscilla learns (the hard way) that high school hierarchy never, ever changes. Even though she has slimmed down, is a famous author of a very popular Book (with a contract for further volumes), and is involved in the local community, the Kelley Sisters continue to torment her at every opportunity. Fortunately, her aunt, her best friend, and her bloodhound all provide comfort as she learns to navigate these frustrations.

Then a body is found by her dog, and the attractive chief of police gets involved. So does a former policeman who is now a private investigator. Pris goes from all alone to two men pursuing her within a couple of days. How could this be bad? Well, just ask those pesky Kelley sisters; they would love to display to the entire city how this is a big, big problem.

By the time I figured out that this book was as much a romance as it was a mystery, I was already committed to figuring out who the killer was (and I was right). I am not a regular purveyor of romantic literature, but at least this one was not terribly saccharine, thank heavens. I easily skipped over the paragraphs about fashion, hair styling, and emotional distress and found that I missed no clues about the underlying whodunit.

There was unavoidable preaching, however, which irked me a little bit. Does the reader really need to hear a long, detailed diatribe about public educational funding concerning STEM vs the arts? And quite frankly, I agree more with the non-protagonist characters about where huge dogs (with minimal training) should and should not be allowed.

The mystery was not terribly challenging to solve, and yet the placement and disclosing of the various clues leading to the solution were quite well done. The author made clear and obvious choices to keep the exclamations by the characters clean, which was very refreshing. The emotional communication was still very obvious without all of the profanity.

Rated: None.

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