Canal Days Calamity (A Dog Days Mystery #2) by Jamie M. Blair

Canal Days Calamity by Jamie M. Blair
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Cameron Cripps-Hayman is busy getting ready for Canal Days and helping her sister with her shop, Dog Diggity, where they make gourmet dog food. But as Cameron and her sister think they have the shop just about ready to go Cameron stumbles upon another dead body behind the shop. Cameron doesn’t know why her luck has gotten so bad to find her second dead body but she worries yet again the police may just blame her.

The police arrive including Cameron’s ex who she has been dating again and begin to investigate but it seems they have the wrong suspect when they start looking at Cameron’s handyman and she is sure she’ll have to solve the crime for them yet again. While juggling her Canal Days responsibilities and that of raising her step-daughter Cameron teams up with the Metamora Action Agency to try to solve the case.

Canal Days Calamity by Jamie M. Blair is the second book in the cozy A Dog Days Mystery series. While it’s not completely necessary to have read the first book in the series I would recommend it as while this one involves a whole new case it really jumps right into the story so a reader would be unfamiliar with the setting and characters and dropped in on the action.

I have to admit my biggest draw to this series is the fact it’s set in the historic town of Metamora, Indiana and being from Indiana myself I can easily identify the things mentioned in the books such as Indiana Grand or Cedar Point so that makes it just that much more of a fun read for me. The mystery side of this one is a little light as there is so much going on in the main character’s life it was sometimes easily forgotten that she was even supposed to be solving a murder. Still with likable characters and a nice setting I find this one quite appealing and will look forward to more in the series.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.