BIRD, BATH, AND BEYOND

An animal talent agent’s patience is sorely tried when the police eye one of her clients as a murder witness.

In her years representing furred, feathered, and finned television and movie actors, Kay Powell (Dog Dish of Doom, 2017) has honed her ability to explain to showbiz folks the limits of the animals’ skills. She tells the cast and crew of Dead City, a zombie crime drama set in New York, approximately a bazillion times that her latest client, a parrot named Barney, can’t really have a conversation—he can only repeat back phrases he’s been taught. But when Dray Mattone, who plays likable medical examiner Dr. Banacek, is shot while Barney is visiting his trailer, even NYPD detective Joe Bostwick seems to believe that the bird can give him information about who committed the crime. And to Kay’s astonishment, Barney does spontaneously generate phrases like “Put down the gun!” that make her wonder if he really does have information to share with police. Of course, his outbursts aren’t all that different from those of the mysterious woman who interrupts Dray’s onstage memorial service to accuse showrunner Les Mannix of killing his leading man before disappearing from the set. For a while, it’s a toss-up who’ll end up in the slammer—the bird, the babe, or both—until quick-witted Kay unravels the mystery of who killed the star of a show about the undead.

A second sharp outing for Copperman’s pitch-perfect heroine.