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Burke shares a series of dog-themed vignettes, of which many have a comedic slant. In one, a little girl named Chloe is given a new puppy for Christmas. When the puppy is elected mayor, the previous mayor, suspected of murdering his own wife, comes seeking revenge. In another, the owner of a Shih Tzu named Pepe is murdered. A dogged female detective traces his killers across the Southwest through the contents of his last meal. One story tells of four beagles named John, Paul, George, and Ringo, who appear on television and become local sensations. Another begins with a woman named Natasha who turns to prostitution after a childhood spent in a convent. She learns that her father, presumed dead, is, in fact. an MI6 operative living in Moscow.
Burke’s stories display the cardinal virtue of curiosity and a fascination with life’s oddities. Within these pages, the reader meets a host of intriguing characters, such as a pastor who inadvertently drowned three babies in a lake during an ill-advised baptism, a troupe of dancing girls skilled in hand-to-hand fighting, a female sheepherder named Molly whose mother absconds with a corset salesman, and a border collie who teaches sheep to do cartwheels. The reader learns that both Bill Clinton and Vladimir Putin own Labradors and that Rottweilers and German shepherds “never got over” Germany losing the Second World War. The specificity of Burke’s comedy keeps the whimsy from becoming grating. On a purely stylistic level, the author demonstrates a facility with wordplay that evokes the great American humorists of the mid-twentieth century. His unflagging inventiveness serves to elevate a well-worn subject.