Reviewed by Alice DiNizo for Readers' Favorite

Main character Lauren Vancouver, who heads HotRescues, a private pet shelter funded by wealthy business man Dante DeFrancisco, is visiting a puppy-mill and rescues four beagle puppies who have been stuffed down a drain pipe. At this same substandard facility, Lauren also meets up with twenty-something Efram Kiley who has a history of pet abuse and has sued HotRescues for adopting out his dog without properly notifying him. Efram comes to HotRescues to confront Lauren and demand the money he's been promised by Dante. But, whoops, Efram is found stabbed to death at HotRescues and Lauren is the prime suspect in his murder. Whose fingerprints are on the slicing knife that killed Efram? Lauren, Captain Matt Kingston of the state's Animal Rescue, Lauren's staff, and Police Detective Garciana are on the trail of this killer, or are they?

Readers will be lined up to read this first in the author's series called Pet Rescue Mysteries, but Johnston must make her characters more three-dimensional and more believable. Lauren Vancouver needs to be a warmer person than what she is in this first book. Characters call each other murderers and freaks, and this is not the way they should relate to each other and keep the reader interested. Lawyers don't keep confidences and secondary characters such as Efram's mother, Mandy, need to be reworked to act and talk believably. Reworking dialogue should clear all this up to the reader's satisfaction.

Otherwise, Beaglemania is well-edited and the plot does follow to a satisfying conclusion. For the most part, the next in this series will be well-received if Lauren and company are developed into characters worth knowing. Readers will bond with the shelter animals in this story and will want to know what happens to Honey, Elmer and the other HotRescues' residents.