Kylie Logan blends a lively amateur sleuth tale with a harder-edged police procedural that delves into family dynamics in A Trail of Lies, her third novel about Jazz Ramsey (The Secret of Bones). An administrative assistant to Sister Eileen Flannery, principal of Cleveland's St. Catherine's Preparatory Academy for Girls, Jazz volunteers in her spare time to train and handle cadaver dogs who find dead bodies for the police.
Her latest Human Remains Detection (HRD) dog--the adorable and rambunctious Wally--gets his first trial when Jazz tries to help Kim Kolesov, the mother of her police detective boyfriend, Nick. Kim is convinced she has murdered a man and his body is in her backyard, and that someone has been spying on her and trying to break into her home. Jazz is hardly surprised when Wally, her seven-month-old Airedale, finds no whiff of any remains because she didn't believe Kim's story, as the woman was a paranoid alcoholic given to delusions. Still, Kim is "part of the package" that comes with Nick, and Jazz promised to look after his mother while he is away on an undercover assignment. Jazz begins to reevaluate Kim's story when the body of a newly paroled convicted murderer turns up in a neighborhood park.
The highly entertaining A Trail of Lies gets a boost from the appealing Jazz and the equally believable supporting characters, complemented by crisp dialogue. Although readers will want to spend more time with Wally and the intricacies of HRD, Logan's affinity for realistic, well-paced storytelling gives A Trail of Lies an extra bite. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer