Book Review: Needled to Death (social worker, death, dog, Wisconsin, fraternity)

Needled to Death: A Helping Hands Mystery, by Annelise Ryan* (Kensington Press, 2019, 327 pages, $7.99, paperback)

Adorable Cover

How to Sell a Book

The best way to sell a book is to put a dog on the front cover – better yet, a Labrador or Golden Retriever. And a cute one. 

The Cover of the Book DogEvals Read

Even better is to have a dog in the title and to have the dog appear in the book – he need not be a major character. Unfortunately, like many books, Needled to Death does not have a Golden Retriever as a major character. Dogs may be the primary reason some readers will purchase Needled, only to be disappointed.

Never Fear!

Needled is still a darn good (dog) book mystery, who-dun-it, crime story, whatever - and the first in a new series. Hopefully with each new title, the Golden, Roscoe, will play a more prominent role.

The Plot

Needled is near and dear to my heart. Would you believe therapy, a bereavement group, a hospital and a police station, a gym at 5 am, foster kids, social workers, two boyfriends, plus Wisconsin and a college fraternity, a homicide and a suicide and blackmail and Asberger’s? What more could you ask for? (Well, maybe graduate school and the military and Idaho, but I guess I can’t have everything in one book!) If you are not interested in all of the above or most of the above, you are surely connected to at least one of the topics that will draw you in.

A Bit Unrealistic, Perhaps, but a Darn Good ‘Yarn’

We have a ride-along (with a detective) that seems to last forever and breaks all the rules of ride-alongs in my experience. A new job without even an interview. And, of course, an ending where the guy saves the girl (with the help of the Golden).

And, speaking of ‘yarn,’ Needled caught our eye because of the dog on the cover, because we thought the book might be about crocheting or needlepointing or knitting, and because the Golden is referred to as a therapy dog on the back cover.

Acceleration of Action

Thirty-six chapters - yet the reader has to read up to chapter six before meeting the Golden Retriever on the cover.

If you can wait, the action does accelerate quite rapidly plus author Annelise Ryan ‘weaves’ in a plethora of facts about the internet and autopsies. The twists and turns all are ‘tied up’ in the end very adroitly.

Starring Deputy Coroner Ex-RN Mattie Winston

The reader will also discover a couple of characters from another series by the same author, the Mattie Winston deputy coroner series, and we suspect they will reappear in future titles. Perhaps therapy dog Roscoe will be given more to do in his avocation of being a therapy dog himself – I can’t wait to find out which of the two new boyfriends wins out, how the new job turns out, and if our protagonist, Hildy, ever finds her own mother’s murderer from 30 years ago!

*Eleven Mattie Winston books (ex-RN now deputy coroner) (Working Stiff, Scared Stiff, Frozen Stiff, Lucky Stiff, Board Stiff - you get the picture and some may have striped cats or golden dogs in them) and six Mack's Bar mysteries