Woof at the Door by Laura Morrigan is the first book in the new “Call of the Wilde” mystery series. Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime, July 2013

Animal behaviorist Grace Wilde keeps her ability to psychically communicate with furry and feathered critters under wraps. But when a Doberman turns out to be the only witness to a crime, Grace will have to let the cat out of the bag in order to catch a killer.

Grace Wilde’s job is anything but normal. When she’s not helping out at the zoo by comforting agitated lemurs, she’s listening to the woes of annoyed house pets. Grace’s life gets even more complicated, though, when the cops summon her to a crime scene to help deal with the murder victim’s terrified Doberman.

The pooch turns out to be the only one who saw what happened the night of the shooting—and only Grace can get the information out of him. The problem is, how will Grace tell the distractingly gorgeous Sergeant Kai Duncan that it’s the dog who’s giving her the intel without spilling her big secret or sounding crazy? Left on her own, Grace will have to follow the pup’s lead to track down the killer. But she’ll have to be careful—or curiosity may end up killing the cat whisperer.

If you could talk to the animal, you would learn so much about their humans. That is what happens to Grace Wilde, animal behaviorist, when she is called in to calm Jax, a Doberman, who witness the death of his master and as he gets closer to opening up his mind to the killer’s identity, the closer it puts Grace in a killer’s sight.

This was a wonderful read that captured my attention immediately as this quickly became a page turner as I wanted to know more about Grace and her ability to commune with animals. This was a good nail-biting mystery as I had to know who was behind the murders, and boy was I surprised when the killer was revealed. The author did a good job in keeping me in suspense with plenty of suspects and several twists, that I didn’t see coming. I like Grace who is a strong heroine, yet vulnerable who along with Moss, her half-wolf dog, her sister Emma, best friend Sonja and potential love interest Kai Duncan, rounded out this superb cast of characters which also provided engaging conversations and non-stop action. I look forward to spending more time with Grace and her friends in this terrifically likable new debut series.

FTC Full Disclosure – The publisher sent me a copy of this book, in hopes I would review it.

previously posted on the Cozy Chicks blog