What a delight to have a new book in the series!
Fans of this series will be delighted with it.
I recommend you read the books in order as I do not feel it can be enjoyed as a standalone.
I voluntarily reviewed an advance reader copy of this book.

PD by D. Lyle, published by St. Martin's Press, is book five in the Whiskey, Tango & Foxtrot Mystery Series. While the book can be read as a stand-alone, I recommend to read the books in order.

PD is a pnr romance with thriller elements, well written, intriguing with a storyline, twists and turns that had me reading on , cover to cover, in one sitting.
A highly entertaining pnr read that gave me all the feels, 4,5 stars.

Purrfectly Dead is a cozy mystery with a paranormal romance aspect. Foxtrot Lancaster is the personal assistant for a very wealthy woman, ZZ (Zelda Zoransky). Foxtrot really is an extraordinary PA, running the household, taking care of the varied guests (ZZ likes to entertain), not to mention a pet graveyard full of pet spirits and a menagerie of wild animals that have been rescued from roadside zoos and homes that should never have had a wild animal as a pet. Add in her cohorts, Tango (a cat on his ninth life) and Whiskey (a ghost of a dog who is able to change into any kind of dog and is somehow visible to everyone); also, they all communicate with each other telepathically.

This is the first book I’ve read by Dixie Lyle, and the first chapter threw me off balance. It is a dinner party with an eclectic selection of guests. I actually went back and wrote down all their names and backgrounds, but it wasn’t really necessary. It all worked out as I kept reading. It was just a lot to take in as an introduction, since I’d never read the earlier books in the series.

Now to the murder mystery, where an escape artist is locked in a safe, but when the safe opens it is a different escape artist who is found dead. Wild speculations, tiny clues thrown in, and a truly surprising ending. I want to go back and read the first book in this series, I want to know more about Ben and Thunderbirds, and I want to know more of Foxtrot’s background. But I enjoyed the book, the characters, and the setting and have discovered a new author I want to explore. Although it didn't seem necessary to read the previous books in the series, I think I would have enjoyed it more if I'd had more background.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for this advanced reader copy of Purrfectly Dead. This is my honest review.

I love a good cozy. Add a paranormal component to it and I’m sold! So this series sounded like a good choice for my next read. While I enjoyed the whodunit, I’m still a little confused by some of the background on the series itself.

Ghost animals, even a ghost dog as a pet, I’m a tad confused as to who can and can’t see it. Reincarnated cats, I’m good with given their nine lives and all. But some of the others things, I’m a tad confused by. Perhaps it will take reading the previous books, but all in all, it was a decent read.

This was the first in this series for me, but not something I’ll be revisiting again. The storytelling was very confusing for me with the back and forth between the three main characters and I had a hard time following and enjoying the story. The storyline itself was quite interesting and fast paced, but the differing voices all at once made it too difficult for me to really get into the book.

I did not like this book. I was incredibly confused and I thought the story was convoluted.
I will not read any other books in this series.

I didn't like this book. It's convoluted and strange. I didn't like the characters and the story line is weird. #PurrfectlyDead #NetGalley.

Purrfectly Dead is book 5 of 5 in the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot mystery series by Dixie Lyle who combined suspense, cozy mystery, paranormal, magic, and supernatural sidekicks into a rollicking story. For the benefit of new readers, here in her own words is an intro to the main characters: Foxtrot, Tango and Whiskey.

Foxtrot: “ Deirdre ‘Foxtrot’ Lancaster is back – with her supernatural sidekicks -Tango & Whiskey – to unlock the mysteries of life, death... and murder in Dixie Lyle’s Purrfectly Dead. When zillionaire Iselda Zeranski throws a party, she means business. Assistant extraordinaire, Deirdre ‘Foxtrot’ Lancaster knows she is in for a night when anything can – and will – happen. The evening's festivities include a high-stakes game between two escape artists locked in a bitter rivalry. The magic turns tragic when one of the escape artists ends up dead. This is no disappearing act. This is murder!”

Whiskey: My pooch, Whiskey, is an Australian cattle dog which means he looks like someone smashed the bottom half of a golden retriever with the top half of a black and white border collie. He has one blue eye and one brown eye, he's very smart, and his name is whiskey.
Also he's a telepathic shape-shifting ghost.

Tango: used to be my cat back in her sixth Incarnation but now she lives here on the Saranki’s estate. She doesn't really belong to anyone and has never been seen. My boyfriend Ben, is the one that feeds her. She's reincarnated and communicates the same way Whiskey does. Well the same way but with a lot more snark in it. She's retained her appearance, the one she had in my childhood - a gorgeous black and white tuxedo cat with an almost question mark on her forehead.

I found this book to be slow reading from time to time as a lot of characters with different names and fantasy characteristics were introduced in a short period of time. Since I wasn't familiar with the many types of creatures, I had to take a moment to let them sink in. This is not a criticism, just an observation. It was well worth the time, just not a book for me to speed read.


Another example of the type of thing that causes me to slow down and think is this explanation of how thoughts are followed through. In the author’s own words: “I'm a multi-tasker. I get things done at the same time as I'm doing other things and the process works like this. Thing one isn't important, thing two is very important, Three is something I do all the time, and thing four doesn't matter much at all. I start doing thing 3 immediately because I can do it without thinking and I start thinking if any other things can be done simultaneously with thing three. I do that and at the first possible opportunity I tackle thing 2, since I had time to plan a course of action. While doing these things, there are always gaps, little moments when I have to wait for something to happen - your phone to ring, a file to load, a fuse to burn down – and during those gaps, I work on one thing and thing 1 if possible and thing 4 if not. Got it?”


Since I'm used to reading basic romantic mysteries I'm not used to this much thinking. Once I got used to it it was exciting and fast paced. What an incredible imagination this author has. I found Purrfectly Dead to be a lot of fun and well worth the time overall. I am tempted to keep adding wonderful quotes, but then I’d have too much of the book in the review. So, go to the source and read the book.

I rate Purrfectly Dead as a 5-star book. I recommended it for fans of cozy Mysteries, fantasy, magic, fresh content, just plain fun and lots of imagination.