TEN LITTLE BLOODHOUNDS

Jo Beth Sidden is a feisty feminist dog breeder in Georgia whose bloodhounds help solve mysteries. In TEN she must locate a missing cat, a downed plane, drugs and the murderer of an eccentric billionairess, all while avoiding her ex-husband, Bubba (yes, Bubba), who has sworn to kill her. Kate Forbes's first-person narrative has the requisite Southern accent if not the flintiness one might expect from a tough woman who is in many ways her own worst enemy. Forbes makes scenes like the cat rescue and the alligator attack truly hair-raising, and her descriptions of the Okefenokee and Georgia's coastal islands are vivid. There's also a lot on bloodhounds, who one suspects are more loved by Jo Beth than the men who drift in and out of her life. TEN is the latest of a series; another, BLIND BLOODHOUND JUSTICE, is also available from Chivers. J.B.G. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/JUL 00]