The path to enlightenment is fraught with danger when Greenwich Village PI Rachel Alexander and her pit bull, Dash, investigate the death of a tai chi practitioner
Did she jump or was she pushed? Devastated by the loss of their only child, David and Marsha Jacobs hire Rachel to find out why Lisa leaped to her death from the fifth-floor window of her martial arts studio. The tai chi instructor, who was studying to be a Zen Buddhist priest, seemed to have it all: beauty, brains, a vocation she adored, a sexy lover—and her beautiful, sad-eyed Akita, who may have been the only witness to her death and is still grieving the loss of his mistress.
Refusing to believe that Lisa would abandon her beloved pet—and with only a suspicious suicide note to go on—Rachel and her canine assistant, Dash, hit the streets of downtown New York, retracing the dead woman’s steps to figure out whether she was yin to a killer’s yang.

I read and enjoyed the first Rachel Alexander and Dash Mystery, ‘This Dog For Hire’(1996) six years ago. I’d meant to carry on with the series, but for some obscure reason, the rest of the series wasn’t available in the UK as an audiobook. I picked up ‘The Dog Who Knew Too Much‘ (1997) when it was released in the UK as an audiobook in 2025. I’m glad I did. It was great entertainment. Dina Pearlman was the perfect narrator for this, and she performed it with gusto.

Although this might appear to be a cosy mystery (Cute title, dog trainer turned unlicensed PI as the heroine, Pit Bull called Dashiell as her ‘partner’), ‘The Dog Who Knew Too Much‘ doesn’t set out to amuse or even to make the reader comfortable. The death at the centre of the story is a tragedy for everybody touched by it. Their grief, guilt and anger are real and powerful. 

The people in the story are vividly drawn. The dialogue felt authentic, especially when Rachel was meeting with David and Marsha Jacobs, which, given that they were the parents of the young woman who may or may not have committed suicide, was heart-wrenching. 

The suspect pool, assuming a crime had been committed, was small, but the characters were diverse, and more than one of them had something to conceal. 

The practice of Tai Chi was so well described that it made me want to seek out a class so I could learn to slip into that disciplined meditation on motion. 

What I liked most about the book was the journey it took Rachel on. She chooses to investigate the death by literally living in the dead woman’s shoes. She lives in her condo, wears her clothes and attends her Tai Chi studio. As she does this, she reflects on her own experience of grief, loss and betrayal. I learned as much about Rachel as I did about the people she was investigating. 

The mystery was a good one, but it’s the people whom I’ll remember. 

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