Gone to the Dogs

If the initials CD bring to mind a dog obedience title rather than audio merchandise or a financial investment, you may well be one of Conant's ( Paws Before Dying ) fans--or one of her canine-obsessed characters. Heroine Holly Winter of Cambridge, Mass., spends her time training her two copiously described Alaskan malamutes, enjoying a courtship with a veterinarian, contributing to dog-lovers' magazines and solving mysteries. In this latest outing, well-regarded veterinarian Oscar Patterson has vanished. Holly's hackles rise as she sniffs out a few suspects, among them a client whose dog died in Patterson's care and an unprincipled trainer whom Patterson had rebuked. As in Conant's other books, mystery takes a distant second to details of doggiedom: the author recommends wholesalers of pet supplies, comments on the terrier personality, advises how best to get a rare breed recognized by the American Kennel Club, and so forth. Conant infuses her writing with a healthy dose of humor about Holly's Fido-loving friends and other Cambridge cliques; the target of her considerable wit clearly emerges as human nature. (July)