The Scent of Murder by Kylie Logan is the first book in a new mystery series by Ms. Logan. The synopsis of the story led me to believe that this book would be about cadaver dogs and their training but this was only a small piece of the story.

I found myself unable to connect with Jazz throughout the story. She totally confused me as to why she investigated the girl's death. Her ex-boyfriend, Nick, was the detective on the murder and seemed to be handling the case quite well. I also didn't understand her on-again, off-again attitude toward Nick throughout the book. The break up seemed have been consensual since they both "couldn't find the time" to be together. The plot moved smoothly and the clues provided made it clear to the identity of the murderer. Ms. Logan's descriptive writing did paint a clear picture of Cleveland and it's many cultural neighborhoods. All in all it was an interesting read and I give it 3.5 stars.

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book from Minotaur Books via NetGalley. All of the above opinions are my own.

This book immediately grabbed my attention, quickly becoming a page turner. The writing style and tone was evenly matched with the pacing making it easy to follow along with what was happening on the pages. I like how this drama was told with a well-defined mystery giving me the right amount of tension to keep me intrigued. Despite the small pool of suspects, there was plenty of clues left to be discovered and I had an idea of who the killer was and it was fun watching it all play out. There was a point when the author changed direction, but I held onto my belief in the killer’s identity.

The narrative was visually descriptive, keeping me engaged in all aspects from the scenery to the interactions between Jazz and those that crossed her path and to the dialogue that kept me abreast of what was going on. As the story advanced, the author provided a backstory that illustrated how the main characters came to be, which sets the stage for the pivotal roles they had in the telling of this tale. A terrific start and I look forward to the next book in this new series.

A pretty good start for a new series. The mystery is compelling. The characters are developing but interesting. My only issue with this book is the blurb is very misleading. I expected the fact that Jazzy is a dog handler and the cadaver plus search and rescue dogs would be more integral to the story. I expected something more like Alex Kava's Ryder Creed series and was excited for it. Hopefully these aspects will be more important in future books.

Jazz Ramsey takes a cadaver-dog-in-training out for a practice session in an empty building, and the dog obligingly finds a real corpse. Jazz recognizes the victim as a student at the school where she works and, jarred by having found the body, resolves to get to the bottom of the crime. While she's at it, she discovers that the detective on the case is none other than her old flame, and there are hints of a possible reconciliation. I'm no fan of those mysteries narrated by--or solved by--dogs, but I found myself wishing that the author had done more here with the dog-training angle. Basically the dog finds the body in the first scene and exits stage left, having no particular importance for the rest of the book. Not only is this a missed opportunity for the author to immerse us further in the unfamiliar, fascinating world of working dogs and their trainers, but Jazz could have somehow used the dog as a teammate to help investigate the crime. Her special expertise as a dog handler--something the police detective on the case could not supply--would have been a much more believable reason for Jazz to investigate this crime in the first place. As it is, she tootles along trying to solve the same crime being actively investigated by competent professional detectives when there is no urgency for her specifically to do so. The action is not compelling or suspenseful enough, and even in the romantic element there is more talk of scheduling conflicts than of any particular chemistry between the old flames. If you're going to give your amateur sleuth a quirky profession useful to law enforcement, then it's much more entertaining to let her use those special skills to solve the crime.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the digital review copy of this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press - Minotaur Books for an eGalley of this book.

Jasmine Ramsey is a member of the local Search and Rescue team. The content of the story indicates that her trained cadaver dog has died but she is out training another dog for a friend. The empty building is scheduled for renovation but the owners allow the handlers to use the facility to train their dogs until work begins. This time when Jazz is putting a dog through it's paces the dog alerts in the vacant building. Jazz finds the dog was right and the body is that of someone she knows.

This was a pleasant read but not what I was looking for. I had hoped to find a book which gave a lot of focus to the training and use of dogs in search and rescue. What I found was a book with little focus on the work of the dog but much focus on the personal relationship between Jazz and her previous boyfriend. The boyfriend is a police detective so he has a perfect reason to be involved in the case, but Jazz has been given, by the author, absolutely no authorization of any kind for investigating a murder. The connection between Jazz and the victim is that Jazz works at the high school which the victim attended and graduated from two years previously. Mighty thin and tenuous reason for all the time Jazz spent investigating and asking questions - which, by the way nobody was obligated to answer at all, so why did they? It wasn't realistic.

As I said, for me this was an okay read but I will not be continuing with the series.

I really wanted to like the story, but I felt a little misled. The blurb makes it sound like the dogs and the heroine working with cadaver dogs is a big part of the story, but it didn’t feel that way. It was a solid mystery and perfect for mystery lovers, but it wasn’t my cup of tea.

Jazz Ramsey is an administrative assistant at a girls school. She also helps train cadaver finding dogs. So...when she and her companion dog Luther discover a dead body in a run down building; one would think this would not be a shock. Except finding a student she knows dressed in a horror garb in this position is eye opening. Good story just wish there had been more dog interaction and participation. A copy of this book was provided by St. Martin's Press via Netgalley with no requirement for a review. Comments here are my honest opinion. PLAN TO READ THE NEXT IN THIS SERIES - HOPE THERE IS MOVE BARKING GOING ON!

2.75
Not a bad story at all but not what I expected. Jazz was an enjoyable character. I liked her story but I was hoping for a bit more of the cadaver dog stuff. I’ve read thrillers about their trainers before and I’ve enjoyed them. This really could have played that up more (at least for me).

This is a light mystery/thriller. It is not gory or overly suspenseful. That’s not to say that there was no tension or surprises, it had its share. Prior to this story I read some really dark stuff so this was actually a nice change. It is a well written and enjoyable mystery.

I did figure this mystery out prior to the conclusion, but not by much! This was a nice change for me and I would read more by this author.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and St. Martin’s Press for a copy in exchange for a review.

I saw dogs, mystery and murder and thought winning combination. I was so pleased The Scent of Murder delivered all I expected.

Jazz is the administrative assistant to Sister Eileen at St Catherine's Preparatory Academy. Her free time is spent working and training dogs to become proficient at Human Remains Detection. While working Luther in a building, they discovered the body of a young woman that Jazz knew from St Catherine's Prep. The homicide detective that responded to the 911 call was someone with whom Jazz had a long history.

The characters were skillfully crafted and the mystery held my interest. The relationship between Jazz and her ex-boyfriend had just the right amount of frustration that added to the story.. There is no graphic sex, violence or language present. I look forward to seeing where Kylie Logan will take this series.

I received an Advanced Reader's Copy from Minotaur Books through NetGalley.
#TheScentOfMurder #NetGalley.

law-enforcement, amateur-sleuth, murder-investigation, grief, family, relationships

I liked the book and it motivated me to read it in one day, but.
The good: the virtual tour of Cleveland, the development of complex characters, positive interactions with family and colleagues, showing the difference in perspectives of the same information, bringing to light the devastating effects of finding a corpse by one trained to do so, strong plot with twists and some unusual red herrings.
Things that need a little work: more focus on the work of the dogs and less on the main character's relationship angst.
I requested and received a free ebook copy from St Martin's Press via NetGalley. Thank you!

This book was just okay. I was hoping for more forensics and techniques of search and rescue, and their dogs. I felt there were a lot of unanswered questions about the characters, and some needed fleshed out a little bit. I hope things work out between Jazz and Nick, and that Jazz gets a new dog, since she was just kind of babysitting someone else's in this story. I think I would read this series again to see if the author changes it up some.

Very mixed on this one .... When I requested this book, I was under the impression that it was going to be a mystery involving cadaver dogs (not a new theme, and one I've read before and enjoyed). However, there was very little about training cadaver dogs, in fact, it was such a small part of the story, it was really inconsequential. The main character, Jazz, who was supposed to be training cadaver dogs was in reality more of an amatuer detective, who was primarily an admistrative assistant in a privat school. The mystery itself was okay - I kept reading because I wanted to know who killed Florie. Once I reached a certain point in the book, the answer was obvious. However, even though I had guessed the who dunnit part, I finished the book.

This book was just okay. Not the worst I've read ... I feel that had the main character been more developed - who she was, more defined - it would have made a much stronger story.

Thank you #netgalley and #stmartinspress for the eARC.

This doesn't revolve around dogs not is it true cozy. A lot happens in this plot with characters whose relationship s are primary to the plot's twists. Enjoyable but for 2 things. I don't like when a character 'investigated on his/her own without sharing info with the police and to say they can't find time for each other is just not the case of Jazz and Nick truly care about each other which I believe they do
Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for sharing this arc in exchange for an honest review

Thank you NetGalley and St Martin's Press for this arc.

I like dogs and I like dog books. But poor old Luther (the dog) was basically just a plot device. The humans in this story were just plain flat, totally underdeveloped and I found Jazz to be completely unlikeable, smug, self-satisfied and ridiculously immature in her expectations. None of the other characters were developed enough for me to form and opinion of them. The mystery itself was predictable . The details of one of Cleveland's " diverse, artsy and interesting neighborhoods" were pretty overdone, but presented anyways to flesh out the book.

Murder mysteries and dogs— man’s best friends, and the author has done an excellent job of blending the two. Good characters and good story bring the promise of an excellent series to come.

"The Scent of Murder" is a cozy mystery which uses the fact that the heroine is a cadaver dog handler as the reason why she discovers bodies. The police have the investigation under control, but Jazz can't mentally move on after finding the body of a girl she knew. She decides to ask questions in an attempt to process what happened. While she does uncover some information, she largely asked the same things that the police did and didn't really add anything to the investigation until the very end. While asking questions, though, she managed to anger several people by basically accusing them of having affairs or murdering the girl.

This was a clue based mystery, and you can guess the identity of the murderer before the police or Jazz. The information about search and rescue and cadaver dog training was interesting, but it was not the main focus of the story. The characters didn't really engage me. Probably partly because Jazz thinks her relationship with the detective was "so good" (which we see no evidence of--it seems more antagonistic) yet she won't make him a priority in her life even when he's trying to.

There were no sex scenes. There was a fair amount of bad language of all sorts (including b**ch). Overall, I'd recommend this interesting mystery to dog lovers.

I love books with dogs and this one sounded great with a cadaver dog and his trainer. I would liked to have had more with the dog. I did not really like Jazz, she seemed very immature. If you date a doctor or a member of the police then you would know that they are going to be called away at different times. It is part of their job.

The Scent of Murder is the first book in a new series by Kylie Logan. At first, I thought there were other books in the series because I felt I was missing information, but, apparently, it was only the backstory being interspersed throughout the storyline.

I thought the story would involve more interactions with the dog and more scenes where the cadaver dog is used. Hopefully, this is explored more in upcoming books.

Overall, the story was solid, but there were times it seemed to drag on, and I noticed I would skip several pages to get to the next section or chapter.

I more than likely will follow this author and try out other books.

A complex, fascinating mystery starring an intelligent, interesting character in Jazz Ramsey. Jazz works as an administrative assistant at a high school in Cleveland (a city that I have spent a lot of time in so this book was especially dear to my heart) and has an unusual avocation as a handler of cadaver dogs. She is out training Luther when the dog finds not the human remains she has buried but the body of a young girl, Florrie Adams who had been a student at the school where Jazz works. The detective who catches the case is Nick, Jazz' former boyfriend which causes the two to see each other for the first time in a long time. Jazz remembers Florrie as a pretty girl who was a good student and won a scholarship to a prestigious photography college. But when she finds the body Florrie is dressed as a goth, and Jazz finds out that Florrie had flunked out of school and was desperate for money. Jazz is curious as to what changed Florrie and sets out to investigate her life. This book is filled with a compelling plot and interesting characters. I thoroughly enjoyed it and hope that there will be more of Jazz' adventures in the future.

The Scent of Murder by Kylie Logan. 3 stars

I started this book with high hopes because I love mysteries that have dogs in them. This is a first book in a series about Jazz, a dog trainer that specializes in cadaver dogs. Throughout the book we get her history and glimpses of past relationships from her interaction with friends and family. The mystery was OK, but I found myself disliking the victim. The dialogue between Jazz and ex-boyfriend Nick felt stilted. If there is a second book, I will try it. Sometimes the next book is better.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC.