Animal Appetite

Dogs, which lie at the core of this swift and engrossing mystery, delight, comfort, protect--and provide vital clues. Holly Winter, a Cambridge, Mass., dog trainer and columnist, accepts a bet that she canwrite a meaningful essay about anything but dogs. Originally beguiled by the tale of 18th-century Indian captive Hannah Duston, she is soon taken up with the story of the death, 18 years ago, of small-press publisher Jack Andrews, whose death by poison had been deemed a suicide by some and a murder by others. What rivets Holly is the fact that Jack's purebred golden retriever was tied up in his office, thus indicating that someone who disliked animals had been present. But the presumed murderer died crashing his car to avoid hitting a dog in the road. As Holly, in her own haphazard but relentless fashion, begins to investigate, she finds more canine coincidences and connections to the academic world with which she is frequently in contact. Conant offers a delightful send-up of both Harvard scholars and dog lovers. Questions abound: How does the recent poisoning of an historian with ties to both Jack and Hannah relate to Jack's death? Did Jack's eccentric wife kill him for the life insurance money? Was his dog trainer (also his lover) involved? Author of 10 other Dog Lover mysteries, Conant (Stud Rites) presents a witty, independent, yet fallible sleuth with inordinate pride in her two Alaskan Malamutes. Why not?--they steal every scene. (Apr.)