Parrots Prove Deadly by Clea Simon, a Mysterious Review.

Review: After an elderly woman dies in a senior citizens home, her daughter hires Pru Marlowe to retrain her mother's pet parrot, a bird that has quite a "colorful" vocabulary, in Parrots Prove Deadly, the third mystery in this "pet noir" series by Clea Simon.

Pru is uniquely qualified to do the job. A pet psychic, she can't help but hear and understand what animals are telling her. And she is quite certain that this particular pet is telling her that the old woman did not die a natural death. He doesn't know the who or why, but he gets across enough information that Pru starts probing into the what she now believes to be a murder only to find herself mixed up in a tangle family fights, drugs, suspicious doctors, and more.

Pru Marlowe is an interesting character, more comfortable around animals than people. Her self-assured attitude comes across at times to be a bit abrasive, rubbing some people — and possibly some readers — the wrong way. Though the murder storyline is nicely plotted, it is intended mostly for fans of animal mysteries, those in which the animals not only participate in solving the crime but also chat with the reader (in this case via Pru) about the case. A different kind of cozy, but a cozy nonetheless.

Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Parrots Prove Deadly.

Acknowledgment: the author provided an ARC of Parrots Prove Deadly for this review.

Cats Can't Shoot
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), April 2012
ISBN-13: 9781590583258; ISBN-10: 1590583256

Parrots Prove Deadly

A Pru Marlowe Mystery by Clea Simon