Professional dog walker Ellie Engleman is ecstatic when wealthy widow Flora Steinman, one of her clients, invites her behind the scenes at the Mid-Atlantic Canine Challenge – MACC. Lulu, Flora’s Havanese, has already won several awards and will be shown in the upcoming Westminster Kennel Club annual event. Lulu has a new trainer, Arnie, a gentleman about Flora’s age and Arnie certainly puts a spark in Flora’s eyes. Edward Nelson, who lives in Flora’s building, had been working with Lulu and was fortunate enough to find another Havanese to show at MACC after he was replaced by Arnie. The big moment has come and it is time to show the toy dogs. Lulu and Arnie are the ninth contestants and as Arnie begins the trot around the ring, he falls over and dies within minutes. Naturally, to be fair the judging of the toys will have to be postponed until the next day which causes a lot of scheduling problems.

Flora is devastated about Arnie’s death, and even though several professional trainers are only too eager to show Lulu, Flora insists that the only person she will trust with her baby is Ellie. Ellie raises every objection she can, but Lulu tells her that she, Lulu, will do all the work and make Ellie look good. By the way, Ellie can communicate with animals, and believe me they know the lowdown on everybody and everything. So with trepidation in her heart, Ellie gives in to Flora.

Arnie’s death is considered a homicide, and out of the hundreds of police detectives in the Big Apple who should be assigned to this case but Ellie’s boyfriend, Detective Sam Ryder. This will be the third murder that Ellie has been involved in, and she helped him tremendously on the other two cases, thanks to her special talent with animals. Sam is not a happy man when he sees Ellie and learns of her association with Arnie through Flora. He also turns totally professional and refers to her as Miss Engleman, which really ticks her off.

The good news is that Ellie and Lulu do an outstanding job in two entries. The bad news is that the killer may be after both of them.

Judi McCoy’s animal stories are just fantastic, and the personalities and dialogues of the dogs in Ellie’s care are marvelously humorous. The secondary characters that are in each book do a fantastic job pushing the storylines and supporting Ellie. This reviewer gives DEATH IN SHOW a Blue Ribbon.