Even Cat Sitters Get the Blues, is book 3 in the A Dixie Hemingway Mystery Series.  This is one of the series that I have been reading out-of-order as I have come across the books.  I started with one of the later books in the series and was immediately drawn to the character of Dixie and her world in the Florida Keys.

This book doesn’t involve the usual cats or dogs, but instead an iguana.  The reader is led on a twisting chase of government agencies, bioterrorism, biochemical weapons, secret labs, murder, and industrial espionage.  Dixie reluctantly investigates the murder while visiting her regular clients, including the recurring character Billy Elliott.  This is still early on in the series but you can see growth from where Dixie started out in the first book, recovering from the death of her husband and child.   There are some references to previous events, but not so much that it interferes with reading the book out-of-order.

This is a great series, well written  with detailed plots and rich characterizations  that are a cut above the average cozy mystery!