PAWING THROUGH THE PAST

Another visit to Crozet, Virginia (Cat on the Scent, 1999, etc.), and the farm where postmistress Mary Minor (“Harry”) Haristeen lives with Welsh Corgi Tee Tucker and cats Mrs. Murphy and Pewter. Harry and half the village are agog over preparations for the town’s upcoming 20th high-school reunion. Fair Haristeen, Harry’s ex, will be there, along with her best friends and even newcomer to town Chris Sharpton. In addition, there’s a smaller 40th reunion that’s drawn retired army officer Tracy Raz from Florida to rent rooms from Harry and renew an old friendship with Miranda Hogendobber, now Harry’s assistant at the post office. Reunion festivities have scarcely begun when the incorrigible womanizer Charlie Ashcroft is found shot to death in the locker room of a nearby country club. Soon after, another alumnus becomes shooting victim number two: Leo Burkey, found in the dumpster behind the Market Shiflet’s grocery store. Sheriff Rick Shaw and his deputy Cynthia Cooper have learned that Ashcroft fathered an illegitimate child years ago and that he was HIV positive. But none of their discoveries bring the anonymous notes or the killings to a halt, maybe because they’re part of the revenge someone is taking for a savage incident from the past. Only the help of her animal family saves Harry from becoming another victim as the absurd plot winds to its finish.

Fun for animal lovers. Sporadically interesting for people more interested in people.