Cozy fans and animal lovers alike won't be able to keep their paws off Dog Dish of Doom. Laugh-out-loud funny, E.J. Copperman's series debut is "lots of fun" (Library Journal, starred). Kay Powell wants to find that break-out client who will become a star. And she thinks she's found him: His name is Bruno, and he has to be walked three times a day. Kay is the Agent to the Paws, representing showbiz clients who aren't exactly people. In fact: they're dogs. Bruno's humans, Trent and Louise, are pains in the you-know-what, and Les McMaster, the famous director mounting a revival of Annie, might not hire Bruno just because he can't stand them. This becomes less of an issue when Trent is discovered face down in Bruno's water dish, with a kitchen knife in his back. Kay's perfectly fine to let the NYPD handle the murder, but when the whole plot seems to center on Bruno, her protective instincts come into play. You can kill any people you want, but you'd better leave Kay's clients alone.

Kay Powell, theatrical agent to non-human animals, is babysitting—that is, birdsitting—her client, a parrot named Barney, on the set of his new TV show, Dead City. When the show’s charismatic star is shot in his trailer between scenes, the only eyewitness to the crime is—you guessed it—Barney. And even though Kay keeps explaining that even a “talking” parrot doesn’t actually converse with people, the investigators insist on interrogating the bird for information he clearly can’t communicate. Suspects accumulate like birdseed, and before long it’s clear the killer believes Barney might actually be able to supply useful evidence. Even Barney can’t fly away from this one.