Susan Conant

Brute Strength (2011)

This is my all time favorite dogs-and-murder series. It has been a long time since we saw a new installment and it was worth waiting for. It has all the major characters we love to see: Holly Winter, the protagonist dog trainer and columnist for Dog's Life; her barely civilized father Buck; he...

Animal Appetite (2005)

Dog writer (Dog's Life columnist) Holly Winter is challenged to write about people for a change and decides to research the story of a frontier woman who escaped her Indian captors to return home a heroine. She finds a lot more to the story than the heroic legend, and also gets interested in anot...

Gaits of Heaven (2006)

I enjoy Susan Conant's books because I like reading about dogs and how to train and take care of them. This book had all of that, the main dog element being training owners how to teach a dog to be housebroken. It also had an interesting subtheme exploring the Boston-area psychotherapy environmen...

Stud Rites (2005)

The second book of hers I picked up at a yard sale a few weeks ago. Unlike the first one, 'Black Ribbon', I didn't find this one so entrenched in the language and mindset of the dog show world that it bordered on the unreadable. Yes, it's still set at a dog show and understanding a little about d...

The Dogfather (2004)

The Dogfather is subtitled, “A Dog Lover’s Mystery,” and indeed it is. Emphasis more on “dog lovers” than mystery, at least in the case of The Dogfather. tThis story was fun to read, as are all of her books. Conant writes with humor and special insight into the life of a dog owner. In The Dogfath...

Steamed (2007)

Reviewed by Carrie Spellman for TeensReadToo.comChloe Carter is not exactly having the best week of her life. For starters, she's about to attend graduate school, studying social work. Not because she wants to but because that's the only way she can get her inheritance from her uncle. He didn't s...

Paws Before Dying (1960)

I've read a bunch of Conant's books in the last few months and this was one of the better ones. As an early book in the Holly Winter series, 'Paws Before Dying' features some characters who show up again later in the series, but the inclusion of Winter's 16 year-old cousin, who is a grown woman i...

Black Ribbon (1995)

I can’t help but compare this author to Laurien Berenson, whose masterful mysteries about dog show enthusiast and amateur sleuth Melanie Travis are favorites of mine in the cozy mystery category. This author doesn’t even come close, alas.As the book opens, dog trainer and amateur sleuth Holly Win...

Scratch the Surface (2005)

I have finished this book finally. I read it while exercising on the reclining bike. On the one hand, this was the perfect book for exercising - I read for 30-45 minutes each day and was entertained enough that I didn't focus on the excercise. However, I also didn't enjoy it enough that I wanted ...

Ruffly Speaking (1994)

There is a non-violent death and thus a mystery surrounding it. This is, however, primarily a book about dogs and issues surrounding them. It's for people who love dogs and despise euthanasia. It's also for people who do not like dogs who bark a lot, mess up the yard, shed, and run loose. It is e...

Gone to the Dogs (1992)

The cover is very cute, but the book is a bore. First, I can't stand first-person novels. Occasionally I find a good one, but most are hideous. This one was unbelievably irritating. The main character (Holly) will stop mid sentence to ask a rhetorical question. For example: "So, I was out trainin...

Evil Breeding (2000)

The Wicked Flea (2003)

This series is supposed to be the canine version of the "Cat Who..." books by Lilian Jackson Braun. They don't make it. There's WAAAAAY too much info about dog shows, raising, pedigrees, etc. It reminded me of textbooks.After completing the book, I still have no idea what the title had to do with...

The Barker Street Regulars (1999)

I read this book because I saw a couple of others from this series and decided to look them up on Goodreads. From there I decided I probably didn't want to get into the whole series, but I did want to read one of the original ones I found, All Shots, and this one due to it's Sherlock Holmes theme...

Turn Up the Heat (2008)

Bride & Groom (2005)

(Mystery, dogs, romance 2004) Another on-going series. I really have to stop reading things out of order because there's always that feeling of not quite knowing what's going on, and a lot of plot space is used up going over past points. Holly and Steve, both very involved with dogs (she's an aut...