CATCH ME IF YOU CANDY

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival goes to the dogs.

Ashland, home to the festival, is a delightfully picturesque town in the Rogue Valley that’s popular with both tourists and outdoor adventurers and home to Torte, the family bakery that Juliet Capshaw and her imaginative crew are raising to new heights. Dropping off a box of pastries at the home of her mother’s friend Wendy, where the women are hosting their regular mahjong game, Juliet meets King George, a talented pug who’s landed a part in an OSF play. George belongs to Marcia, a newer member of the mahjong group. Juliet, who’s never imagined the difficulty of wrangling canine performers, hears about a bitter battle between Marcia and Jax, the owner of Pippa, the poodle who’s George’s understudy. Wendy’s just purchased a stunning antique mahjong set at a thrift shop, and she finds a cryptic note inside it about a dead dragon—just as George is appearing in a farce called A Play About a Dragon. Juliet’s longtime friend Lance, the OSF artistic director, is annoyed about all the drama surrounding the battle of the dogs, a drama heightened by an animal performer coordinator who seems to dislike animals, a diva of a dog trainer, and even the dog beautician, who grooms both George and Pippa. After a marvelous Halloween parade, Juliet and her husband, Carlos, find a man in a dragon costume dead in front of Torte. Lance identifies him as Anton Dudley, the dog trainer and animal consultant for OSF. Unable to accept that the whole thing is a coincidence, Juliet and her network of fellow sleuths investigate, leading to many unforeseen results.

Both the dogs and the mystery are overpowered by the deliciously detailed descriptions of food.