Misfit Mutts and Mayhem: A talking dog cozy mystery (Heywood Hounds Cozy Mysteries Book 5)

Gina’s adversarial relationship with Heywood Sheriff Mallory comes to a head in this installment of the Heywood Hounds series. Her laziness and ineptitude for police work has had her targeting innocents for crimes, and Gina has been the one to actually solve them. Since Mallory fired Trevor for standing up to her in the previous book, and Gina has been campaigning for him to be the next sheriff. When a bartender is killed at a shady bar, Gina plans to steer clear of the investigation. That is until she becomes the prime suspect due to DNA evidence. Gina has no ties to the victim and has never been in the room where the crime occurred, so who is framing her and why? With bodies piling up around the case, she needs all the help she can get. Thankfully, she’s got Daisy’s super sniffer, Trevor’s insider at the station, a newspaper reporter, and Annabelle’s support, Gina is ready to find the killer and hopefully oust Mallory once and for all.

Gina’s talking dog, Daisy, is the star as always. This time around, she’s working her favorite new word, “diabolical”, in as much as possible. I love the relationship between Gina and Daisy, as it adds much humor to the story. Daisy also gets a chance to play service dog so that she can help sniff out clues. Gina doesn’t have any fosters in this book, but Mustard, from book 4, makes an appearance. The misfit mutts are strays that have been adopted by the bar, and Daisy makes friends with them. The book ends with a bit of a cliffhanger. While this murder is solved and Gina exonerated, the sheriff’s election is halted by an incident. I can’t wait to see what happens next for Gina, Daisy, and Trevor.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.