When Maggie Ryan, a retired schoolteacher, is murdered, and over thirty dogs are discovered living in her home, the Cedar Bay Animal Shelter is stretched beyond its meager resources. What to do with the dogs and finding the murderer becomes a challenge. But who would have wanted the elderly spinster dead, and what was the killer's motive? Was it the local reverend who desperately needed money to pay off his gambling debts? Or the neighbor who was kept awake by Maggie's barking dogs? Was it the disgruntled father of a boy Maggie had wanted to hold back a year in school? Or even the director of the animal shelter? Join Kelly, the owner of Kelly's Koffee Shop, and her husband Mike, the sheriff of Beaver County, Oregon, along with a bulldog puppy named Max, and Sanyu, an Akita guard dog, as they literally have to sniff out the murderer before they become the next victims.