Bending the Paw is the ninth title in this canine themed mystery. The story features a dog and her partner. Join them in a stormy Fort Worth as they work to solve their latest case. There is blood, lots of it, and a missing husband but no corpse. What’s up? Read this one to find out. Also, watch out for the crooked contractor. The pages turn easily as readers follow Megan (human) and Brigit (our cover dog) and, for readers who enjoy this one, there are many more, beginning with Paw Enforcement.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St Martin’s press for this title. All opinions are my own.

I appreciate the publisher allowing me to read this book. I loved this mystery the characters are fantastic, can't wait for the next one.

Excellent addition to the Paw Enforcement series. The characters are likable, endering smart, and engaging. The K9 Brigit is wonderful and as a fur mom I'm delighted to have a K9 as an MC.

It's love hiw well Megan and Brigit work together and that we get to see Brigit share her POV. This is a well written mystery series and I look forward to more from this author.

one of my all time favorite series to read and re read , and it makes me laugh when ever I pick a book from this series up , and in the last few days I needed to laugh

This book is an excellent addition to a well established series. The characters are likable and Brigit, the K9 is wonderful. It's quite delightful to read a series that let's Brigit share her POV. This is a well crafted mystery and I look forward to more in the series.

Megan and her police dog Brigit are called to a crime scene straight out of a horror movie. Blood everywhere. This is book 9 in the Paw Enforcement and it seems it might be a little more graphic than others but it's not. Can be read as a stand alone but you'll want to get better acquainted with Brigit and the other characters. I love the fact that Brigit the dog narrates part of the story and points out so many human problems. With the duo concentrating on the murder, it seems some home improvement contractors may be fleecing friends and family with shoddy repairs after a hail storm. Lots of fun reading. I received a copy of this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Loved the return to this series. I love the humor in this series and I especially love the chapter's from Bridget's point of view.

I received this book, for review purposes, through Netgalley and all thoughts and opinions are my own.
In this gripping installment, Brigit and her human partner Megan Luz are on the job. It"s Valentines season, the season of love and devotion. The crime scene call out is a particularly brutal one, a bloodbath. Shelby Olsen has discovered her home a crime scene and her husband missing. With Brigit's nose and Megan's detecting skills this will prove a tough case but they always prevail. Add to this the impending hurricane season and a roofer intent upon helping himself over helping others. Their skills will be put to the test.
I enjoyed this mystery. The characters are strong and likeable. I look forward to more from this author.

Megan and Brigit, her K9 dog, come to a brutal murder scene and start to unwind a very puzzling mystery without a body. Cozy police procedural. Good for covid reading.

A fun, light cozy mystery series where readers get the perspective of the K-9 as well as the human detective, this entry has newly-engaged officer Megan wrestling with a crime scene drenched in blood, as well as a possible scam artist making their way through her city.

I enjoyed the characters and their relationships, especially Megan and her now-fiance Seth, and the bond each of them have with their dogs. The search for the scam artist, as the lower stakes crime, lends itself to some moments of humor and clever detecting, while the bloody home has heartbreakingly high stakes. I did figure out the solution to the bigger crime before it was officially revealed, but that didn't mean it felt any less clever or unique.

This isn't a series I go and actively seek out, but when I get to read one, I always end up enjoying it. This is a great match for dog lovers and mystery lovers alike.

I really enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading more in the series by this author. Officer Megan Luz and her K-9 partner Brigit have been called in to assist Detective Audrey Jackson at a brutal murder scene. The only problem is that there is a ton of blood, a frantic wife, and missing husband and no body. While working the case Officer Luz and Brigit also encounter problems in another case where due to the heavy storms in the area of Fort Worth there appears to be a scam artist working as a contractor in the area. The story has a most unexpected ending. I received this e-book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

The thing I liked about this story the most is that it gives points of view from a human, Megan, and Brigit, her K-9 partner. A nice change of storytelling in my opinion. Both Megan and Brigit are looking for a killer along with Detective Jackson. The killer left the victim's kitchen in a blood bath and there was no body. The wife and a friend, unfortunately, found the crime scene. But why take the body? What was the purpose of that? Was there more than one killer and what were they after? Why did they kill this person? The answers are in the book. I voluntarily reviewed a copy of this book from NetGalley.

I enjoyed this book. It's a little graphic at the beginning with all the blood but afterwards is fine. I like the characters and especially the dog Brigit. The plot is very clever and well written. I was very surprised by the ending. #Bending the Paw #NetGalley

I have not read all 9 books in this series but I have enjoyed the few that I have read. I do like this series and how Diane Kelly goes back and forth from the perspective of key people in the book. Megan, her K-9 Brigit, the Slasher, and so on. I especially enjoy Brigit. I totally can see how a dog would think in these ways if we could hear it thinking! Haha! This is one of those books where you get caught up in figuring out who did it! I love it when authors build up to who did it revealing just enough to make you consider it and stretch it until the reveal. This was one of those books and Diane Kelly perfected it!

Bending The Paw by Diane Kelly

Make way for Police Officer Megan Lutz and her K-9 partner, Brigitte. They investigate a baffling new mystery. A murder without a body is like a dog without a bone.

Great story. I loved the way Brigit, the K-9 dog, gets here own chapters. Megan is a great cop. Good, friendly characters. I like the Paw Series.

Thank you Net Galley for sending me an advanced reader’s copy for review.

3.5 stars

In this 9th 'Paw Enforcement' mystery, Forth Worth police officer Megan Luz and her German shepherd K-9 partner Brigit help investigate a grisly crime. The book works fine as a standalone.

The story opens on Valentine's Day, when Megan 'says yes' to her firefighter boyfriend Seth. They'll soon have a blended family: Megan and her K-9 partner Brigit and Seth and his K-9 partner Blast. The betrothed couple hurry to share the news with Megan's family and her roommate Frankie, and wedding chatter commences.

In the midst of the excitement Megan gets a call from her mentor, Detective Audrey Jackson, who says "I'm at a crime scene. A grisly one. Can you and Brigit get over here?" As a K-9 team with a special set of skills, Megan and Brigit are always on call. So they leave the engagement merriment and hustle to the crime scene, where they find a kitchen covered in blood, but no body.

Detective Jackson explains that a married couple, Shelby and Greg Olsen, live in the home. Shelby returned from dinner with coworkers expecting to find her husband Greg - a movie theater manager who had to work on Valentine's Day - at home. Instead Shelby found the gruesome scene, and Greg and his car were missing.

Megan observes blood spatter all over the kitchen, and several sets of footprints on the floor, including pawprints from the family dog.

Megan allows Brigit to sniff the blood in the kitchen, then orders her to trail. Brigit leads Megan to the empty garage where she sniffs at a blood puddle where the car trunk would have been, sniffs the area where the passenger door would have been, and 'sits' to indicate the trail ends where a driver's door would have been if a vehicle occupied the space. Brigit's behavior, which is rewarded with praise and liver treats, indicates that the people in the Olsen's kitchen left in the car that had been parked in the garage, perhaps with Greg's body in the trunk.

Megan and Detective Jackson proceed to investigate. They interview witnesses, look at CCTV footage, analyze computers, examine phones, interpret data, and so on. A fertile area of inquiry seems to be cash proceeds from the movie theater, which thieves may have planned to steal.

In the midst of the Greg Olsen investigation, a hailstorm hits Forth Worth, damaging the roofs of many homes. Roofers soon flood the city, going door to door to drum up business. Some roofers become elusive after getting a deposit, and Megan is sent to investigate a claim of fraud.

A homeowner named Althea Nomikos says she gave roofing contractor Tommy Perkins five-hundred dollars a week ago, and he hasn't done a thing. Megan agrees to look into the matter and uses her sleuthing skills to figure out what's going on.

The story is told from three points of view: Megan, Brigit, and the Slasher who perpetrated the crime in the Olsen home. In Brigit's sections the K-9 thinks about using her sniffing skills to help Megan; the discomfort of wearing dog booties at crime scenes; how much she likes liver treats and belly rubs; how dogs are better at some things than humans; and other dog-related things. Brigit acquits herself well in the story, peeing on the shoes of Megan's nasty former partner and bringing down perps who try to get away.

The investigative parts of the book are interspersed with scenes of Megan shopping for a wedding dress; looking for a wedding venue; arranging for centerpieces; choosing flowers; and so on - all of which adds a touch of fun to the book.

This is a well-researched police procedural that would appeal to armchair sleuths who likes to solve the crime along with the detectives.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author (Diane Kelly), and the publisher (St. Martin's Press) for a copy of the book.

An absolutely fantastic cozy mystery. Loved the fast paced plot and the quirky cast of characters. Great series. I highly recommend this book. My thanks to the publisher for my advance ebook. This is my unbiased review.

Megan and Brigit are a K-9 unit in Fort Worth and she's also involved with the hunky Seth, a fire fighter and his dog Blast. Megan and Brigit are called to a very grissly murder scene. It is a bloodbath on Valentine's day. Brigit uses her sniffing skills to try to determine what has happened but there is so much blood that it is unbelievable that someone could have survived such a horrendous act of violence. The wife, of course, is always the first suspect but by all rights: they are a very happily married couple enjoying life together. There has been no body recovered from this murder site and the longer it goes, the less leads they have. Also along the way, Megan gets involved with a scammer and it looks like he may have outwitted the smart cop and her partner.
Great twists and turns and lots of crazy action

Hey folks, daddy Steve here with some doggiebook talk. This one is the 9th book in the Paw Enforcement series by Diane Kelly titled Bending the Paw.

If you were following my doggiebook reports about a year ago, you might remember that I had talked about the 8th book in the series, Paw of the Jungle. That was the first book I'd read in the series and it had made me think about going back and read from the start but I kinda ran out of time in the year, or well, I read other books. 😉

I think I liked this one even more than the previous one and very honestly, I now really want to go back and read the series from the start. I felt like I knew Megan and Brigit a bit more thins time around, as well as the surrounding cast of the series.

While this is probably qualified as a cozy mystery, it's a bit more police procedural than the usual cozy mysteries you can find out there. These mysteries usually have a woman in the role of an amateur sleuth but in this case, Megan is an aspiring detective but is already a police officer, so she is not totally out of her element...

That's another recommended read for any dog lover. It's fun and entertaining.

Huge thanks to NetGalley who provided a free eBook advanced reader's copy in exchange for my honest review. This is as honest as it gets...

#Malcolmstories #doggiebooks
#Netgalley #BendingthePaw

This is the 9th book in the delightful "Paw Enforcement Mystery Series" by cozy author Diane Kelly. I have read many in the series and enjoy returning to each new release. This is the perfect series for dog lovers . Thank you to the publisher and to Net Galley for the opportunity. My review opinion is my own.,

In this next in series our Protagonist police officer Megan Luz and her K-9 partner Brigit are on a new case . They are a terrific team and work closely together solving crimes. Megan is a savvy smart woman with a talent for her job . This book has her investigating two very different crimes. The first a gruesome crime scene with a lot of blood but no victim. Clues are left behind that both Brigit and Megan find suspicious. The second crime wave is happening among shady roofing companies repairing roofs after a storm for local homeowners. Megan and Brigit are on both cases simultaneously and in the end solve both crimes as only they can..

I love the humor in this series . This is a engaging fun read with a outstanding set of sleuthing that kept me guessing to conclusion. I love the charcters and K-9 Brigit is a favorite of mine. I look forward to the next in series. Review cross posted.