When Bunnies Go Bad

January 11, 2016
Simon’s uneven sixth Pru Marlowe Pet Noir (after 2015’s Kittens Can Kill) finds Beauville, Mass., brimming with bunnies: Henry, the Eastern cottontail whose strange conduct is troubling his 84-year-old babysitter; Bunny in the Sun, the painting recently stolen from a famous art museum; and Cheryl Ginger, the ski bunny whose boyfriend, Teddy Rhinecrest, was murdered shortly after he publicly humiliated her at a local restaurant. Pru, an animal behaviorist (and secret animal psychic), is only concerned with Henry—or so says her boyfriend, police officer Jim Creighton—but when Cheryl’s dog also becomes a client, Pru can’t help getting mixed up in Teddy’s murder investigation. Pru’s method for communicating with Beauville’s nonhuman residents is cleverly conceived, and Simon neatly incorporates these exchanges into her tale, but the plot lacks focus, and the pace drags. Fair play mystery fans may be disappointed, but animal lovers will be delighted. Agent: Colleen Mohyde, Doe Coover Agency.

December 1, 2015
The sixth entry in Simon's Pet Noir series (Kittens Can Kill, 2015, etc.) is just as blanc as the first five. By the morning after he's bullied his girlfriend, redheaded Cheryl Ginger, at Hardware, perhaps the finest dining establishment in Beauville, Massachusetts, reputed mobster Teddy Rhinecrest has gotten his comeuppance, and more, as Pru Marlowe, the "animal behaviorist"--all right, pet psychic--who overheard the quarrel, sees when she finds him stabbed to death in the doorway of his rented condo. Jim Creighton, Beauville's top cop, makes it clear that he doesn't want his main squeeze's help as he works with the Feds to track down Berkshire Forest, aka Bunny in the Snow, a painting Teddy allegedly boosted from an art museum. But everyone else is dying for Pru's help. Cheryl asks her to train her spaniel, Stewie, whom in her ignorance she calls Pudgy. Teddy's widow, Theresa--that's right, the no-goodnik was married all along--wants Pru to meet with private eye Martin Parvis. Local gangster Gregor Benazi, who's something of a fixture in Beauville, asks her to keep an eye out for something he declines to describe very closely. Although everyone wants Pru's help, no one seems to be leveling with her: not the sparse human cast, not Stewie, not even Henry, the wild rabbit new client Marnie Lundquist is minding while her vet-tech granddaughter is taking a gap year in Asia. What's the big secret? Not much of a secret at all, it turns out. Fans will know better than to expect much mystery to get in the way of Pru's communications--however cryptic this time around--with the animals she loves.

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February 1, 2016
In this latest title in the only series to combine pets with noir (or a semi-tame form of noir), animal psychic Pru deals with a sneaky rabbit and finds a few bodies strung about her quaint Berkshire hometown of Beauville. It starts with an an obnoxious tourist whom Pru observes at a restaurant with his girlfriend; later she finds his body in a condo. Maybe weirder is the fact that the girlfriend needs Pru's help with her dog, a persnickety spaniel. And let's not forget that rabbit, a wild bunny named Henry, who is living with an 84-year-old woman. Oh, and there's a mobster, too, whose presence somehow forces Pru to deal with some secrets of her own about her hasty exit from New York. Usually, Pru can sort out her various entanglements by hearing what the pets have to say, but this time neither the rabbit nor the spaniel are coming through clearly. The plot is nearly as challenging to follow as the critters, but once again Simon's wacky humordarkish but surely not blackprovides more than enough entertainment.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)