Gone to the Dogs [Mass Market Paperback]

Now living in Cottonwood, Arizona, her current owner writer Nell Jordan places Miss Piggy as everyone calls her on a strict diet forcing the starving canine to seek crumbs. The two females visit medical facilities and nursing homes to provide comfort to the patients and residents. When senior citizen Frank Cramer dies, he bequests a fortune to that 36-24-34 soul, Miss Piggy, whom stayed with him until his last breath. Private investigator Dan Travis goes undercover as a photographer investigating Nell at the request of his agitated mother over her dad's estate going to the dog. Miss Piggy does not trust this gigolo romancing her pet human, but those feelings conflict with her prime directive of performing good deeds through matchmaking.

When Miss Piggy wags her tail, the story line is clever, insightful, and fun as a not so repentant Lynda acts good, bad, but definitely no longer sexy. The story line has a bit of suspense with a wannabe dognapper, but that takes away from the charming prime theme of Piggy matchmaking yet also preventing a match as the dog struggles with FINDING MR. RIGHT for Nell. The animal therapy scenes are educational and augment a strong romance with a funny bone that sends fans to the dogs.

Harriet Klausner

In this adventure, Piggy finds herself in Arizona living with freelance journalist Nell Jordan. Nell is a kind soul who has turned Piggy into a therapy dog (if you can believe it!), visiting hospitals, nursing homes and the like. When one of their patients dies (the gruff, curmudgeonly Frank Cramer) both Piggy and Nell are stunned to discover that Frank left his 12 million-dollar fortune to Piggy! (with Nell as her guardian). While Piggy is thrilled, Nell is stunned and now must be wary of leeches and hangers-on interested only in the money. But is her new love interest, photographer Dan Travis one of them? Piggy for one is very suspicious of "Studly Dan"!

And perhaps Piggy has reason to be suspicious, for Dan is not really a photographer he's a former LA cop, now a private detective hired by Frank's daughter. She is convinced Nell is a conniving bimbo who charmed Frank out of his millions. While he's got a job to do, Dan finds himself captivated by the sweet and sexy Nell. Dan has other secrets he's keeping that I won't reveal here and Piggy decides to make it her mission to sabotage his romantic efforts with Nell (her efforts are hysterical!). As the days pass, it looks like Nell is definitely falling for the "studmuffin" so it looks like Piggy's going to have to kick it up a notch. She uncovers Dan's most damning secret and brings it to Nell's attention (ever seen a dog type?!) and it finally looks like Piggy's matchbusting (matchmaking in reverse) is finally working when a tearful Nell kicks him out of her life. Problem is Dan has come to have very real feelings for Nell. He has always doubted that Nell is capable of deception, but he does uncover a secret from her past that makes him wonder. Will they ever clear the air and be able to trust one another?

This was a really fun book that had me chuckling with regularity. It may be too cute for some, but I got a kick out of Piggy, her ingenuity and her disdain for just about all of the humans she comes into contact with (she has some of the best lines in the book!). But she does have a heart and she proves it more than once. I haven't enjoyed getting into the mind of a dog so much since meeting Hairy from Susan Donovan's TAKE A CHANCE ON ME!. I think I will have to investigate Piggy's first two adventures and will likely also read two upcoming books surrounding Nell's friends and fellow therapy volunteers Mckenna and her cat Nefertiti (in THE CAT'S MEOW, Fall '04), and Jane with her border collie Idaho (TBD).

This author also writes historicals set in the American West in the mid to late 1800's that may also be worth checking out. Highly recommended.