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Kendra Ballantyne has not been having a good year. She is waiting out a suspension from the bar, having resigned from a high-powered LA law firm as a result of a leaked document and the threat of disbarment. She has managed to keep her old BMW, and is renting out her Hollywood mansion to a reality show alumnus and her studly boyfriend. She is finding out, as one tends to do in the face of such disasters, who her real friends are. One of them is Darryl Nestler, owner of the Doggy Indulgence Day Resort. He connects Kendra with some of his clients who need someone to pet-sit. Darryl's first lead is Jeff Hubbard, owner of a security business; Jeff offers $50 per day plus room if Kendra will keep an eye on his Akita, Odin. She takes the deal. Kendra desperately wants to clear her name and get back into the legal arena, although certainly not at her former firm. In the meantime, she walks dogs, feeds cats, and is reluctantly making the acquaintance of a ball python, Pythagoras. Life is reasonably good, and the relationship with Jeff Hubbard is looking very promising. Then she walks in on a very dead Carl Cuthbertson. Not good. Detective Ned Noralles is in charge of the case. He and Hubbard have history, which doesn't make him any fonder of Kendra, and he's already plenty suspicious of her. His suspicions get larger when Kendra finds another client, Shirley Dorian, dead -- also stabbed. Kendra, with the help of Hubbard and some of her friends at her old job, keeps trying to figure out the connections between the dead clients, her legal situation, and anything else that might possibly tie this all together. There is a judge, for instance, who has the hots for Kendra. Did he leak something? Did he kill someone? Just because Kendra turned him down? Unlikely -- but not impossible. And there are plenty of scenarios which are just as possible. SIT, STAY, SLAY is the first in the pet-sitter series. While I won't wait with bated breath for the next one, I'd be happy to read it should I come across it. Kendra is a likeable person, making the best of a lousy situation. The other characters are plausible, the plot no more far-fetched than many other mysteries on the shelf, and the whole feeling is very up. It's a fun read, with enough romance to round out Kendra's life, and the bad guys go down in the end. Not a bad deal.
Reviewed by P. J. Coldren, May 2005
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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