Book 11 in the cosy crime series about Thea Osborne, house sitter extraordinaire. This time, against her better judgement, Thea agrees at short notice to sit a house where the owner has had to leave at short notice, and where her only duties are to feed the wild birds in the adjoining woodland and set up an automatic camera each day to photograph them. Thea's mother, Maureen, has asked her to do the job, as Maureen has recently made contact on Facebook and now in person with Fraser, brother of the house owner.

On her first day there, Thea meets a couple of characters who will be important in the story. One is a woman in her early 30s who turns up claiming to be the daughter of Fraser, and saying she has property stored on the premises including a memory stick. Doubtful at first, Thea lets her in to claim the items. Another woman she meets is walking an extremely cute puppy, the dog making more of an impression on Thea than the owner. She is preoccupied with issues of her own: Drew Slocombe, with whom she had formed a bond in earlier books, has not been in contact with her since the death of his wife, and she is depressed about the obstacles in the way of any relationship between them, including the antipathy of his business partner, Maggs. She also starts to doubt if Fraser is all he appears to be, especially when it becomes clear later that her mum's memories of him (from before she met Thea's father) are extremely sketchy, and he is possibly a con artist.

Soon, mum and would be boyfriend descend on Thea for a visit, but just before they do so, she finds a body, as usual, and becomes embroiled in a police investigation. Complex strands that occur this time include an ongoing court case and the relationships of the various members of Fraser's family, plus the occasional interlude with Drew who is missing Thea but has until now felt constrained from contacting her due to Maggs's disapproval. Interestingly, we finally get to see Thea's mother who hasn't always been portrayed in a good light and she turns out to be intelligent, dynamic and no-nonsense to boot - in fact, I thought she made a good foil for Thea, and I think some readers at least would have preferred having her as the heroine of this series!

To avoid spoilers, I won't say more about the plot other than the fact that dog lovers may find a scene towards the end upsetting. ( )