Lots about dogs, particularly spaniels, with a complicated solution ( )

There's several good bits in here - Beth speaking up; heck, Cunningham speaking up; finding Jason (sneaky trick, but didn't he have anything closer?) - fun stuff. The mystery itself is not bad, though some of the curlicues on it I could have done without - the whole thing with him being a ladies' man, for instance. But the victim and the widow, at least, seem to be nice people - the sort of people it's worth working to help. And most of the villains were rather obvious, in indirect ways - that is, the people you disliked upon meeting mostly turned out to have something nasty going on. OK, I have a simple mind, but Hammond enjoys twists a little too much for me. As usual, I like the Cunningham household better than all the baroque twists of the mystery. ( )