One expects to find many things in northern Michigan: fly-fishing, cherry festivals, mosquitoes the size of helicopters. English dandies, however, are in short supply.
This is why freelancer and would-be novelist Emily Kincaid is so surprised when she's hired to edit the “definitive work on Noel Coward,” in Dead Dogs and Englishmen, by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli, which was chosen as one of the Top 10 mysteries of the year by Kirkus Reviews.
Emily's client, Cecil Hawke, is a paisley ascot-wearing toff “straight out of a thirties romantic comedy” – or he would be if it weren't for the missing knuckle and the repellent manner. But the divorced Emily is so short on funds that she's learning to can her own fish (ketchup is the secret ingredient) from a neighbor who takes road kill cuisine to an art form. (Emily does draw the line at flattened squirrel.) So she overlooks the fact that Cecil is quite creepy and that his wife, Lila, is clearly having an affair with Emily's pretentious ex-husband, Jackson.
Meanwhile, Emily is reporting on the murder of an unknown Mexican woman, whose body was found near the corpse of an executed dog. Her friend, the cranky Deputy Dolly Wakowski, is even more curmudgeonly than usual, and that's before spooked migrant workers start disappearing before the harvest.
“Dead Dogs and Englishmen” has a few glitches: Miss Havisham is referred to as “Miss Haversham” at one point by someone who's supposed to be knowledgeable about English literature, and Emily talks about dropping off film to go with her story – something a reporter wouldn't have done for a decade or so.
Balancing that is a discourse on tent worms by a north woods expert and a “Blithe Spirit” costume party featuring a Madame Arcati in drag. (“You know what, Emily?” Dolly remarks. “This is like one of those crazy English mysteries. You know – we got all the suspects in the library....”) And Emily is a detective for our skint times: She can't afford health care, but she can make flour out of cat tails and work three jobs at once.
