The Blurb :Sophie Katz's relationship with the irresistible and occasionally insufferable P.I. Anatoly Darinsky is on the fritz when a friend recruits Sophie's investigation skills to decode her possibly two-timing husband's strange behavior. When Sophie shows up in a short, red cocktail dress and her friend's hubby winds up dead, the loveable would-be sleuth can't help but take on the job.
Suddenly plunged into a crazy world of campaign mudslinging, dirt-digging and cover-ups, Sophie begins to uncover some pretty dirty secrets indeed- involving a conservative congressional hopeful's involvement in the Furry community, a group of people who dress up in mascot-size stuffed animal costumes. Sex and politics, wouldn't you know?
Way in over her head as usual, Sophie reluctantly-or not-so-reluctantly- enlists the help of her two-time sidekick and ex-Anatoly. Together they set out to determine who killed Eugene and why, and in the process can't resist falling for each other-again?
My Thoughts :
I have neglected this series for a long time and a novella I read before Christmas made me want to pick this series back up again. After all I have a couple of the paperbacks on my bookshelf gathering dust. However it has taken me till now to pick the next in the series up and that was only because my Kindle was out of juice and I needed something to read. This was the book on top of my paperback 'to be read' pile and I got stuck in without thinking much about what I could remember about the previous books in the series.
The story seemed familiar and as things progressed I picked up on the who was who and what was what from the previous two books. I vaguely remember the plots and even though I must have read the previous books a few years ago I had no trouble catching up. Things got interesting very quickly and I was drawn into the whole mystery and found myself wanting to solve the crime before Sophie did. She is a likable character but I felt the need to beat her to the finish line
There was a bit of a political aspect to the whole story and that left me a little lost. One thing I haven't been able to get to grips to is US politics and how everything works. I understood that two of the characters were up against each other in some kind of vote but the rest went over my head. Despite the boring circumstances of the crime (the politics) I still ended up enjoying the story and especially liked the furry twist.
Sophie Katz is a more together version of Stephanie Plum. She has a good career, apartment, money and her stuff doesn't get blown up. She is amusing and funny like Plum with some more intelligence thrown in for good measure. She has some helpful friends who are just as weird and wonderful as she is and only has the one, very mysterious, guy in her life.
All in all I am glad I picked this one up and I have now added the next in the series to the 'to be read' pile. It seems the series is already over and I will make the effort to get this series finished this year. I need to do a good clear out as far as my dusty books are concerned and finish some of the series that I have failed to get back to over the last couple of years.
Well worth trying out if you like a good mystery. This is pretty cozy but not over the top like some of the themed cozies out there.
