Andrew K. (kuligowskiandrewt) - , reviewed on 9/26/2014 + 569 more book reviews

Earlier books in Sue Henrys Maxie and Stretch series have described the protagonists (human and canine) travels while wintering away from their base in Homer, Alaska. This book deviates from that pattern, in that the characters decide to remain in Alaska for the entire year.

I found this book to be frustrating. I certainly expect a cozy mystery to contain snippets of the main characters daily activities, along with interactions with a set of quirky friends while stumbling into and working towards uncovering a mystery. This book, however, devotes most of its content to those interactions among characters who would better be described as ordinary than quirky or bland, rather than interesting and little to none with an actual mystery.

As an aside: There is an undercurrent that surfaces in various aspects of the book, in which the character looks at the deaths of her former husbands, the advancing age of her dachshund Stretch, and the mortality of the lead character herself. Given that this turned out to be the last novel published by the author an announced book in her other series has never seen the light of day and frankly, the decline in quality over earlier works by the author, I have to wonder if Ms. Henry was sending a message to her readers that she was also contemplating her own mortality.

RATING: 2 stars. I questioned whether it would be more polite for this amateur reviewer to simply bury the review rather than post it. However, it appears I am not the only person who felt this work to be weak when compared to the authors earlier efforts. I hope that I worded it professionally and with courtesy to a living, breathing, human being who could be sitting at the other side of a computer screen reading what some stranger thought about her efforts.

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