Below is the complete list of Krista Davis’ Paws and Claws books in order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of Paws and Claws Books
About Paws and Claws
Krista Davis’s Paws and Claws Mysteries are cozy mysteries set in Wagtail, Virginia, a fictional mountain town built around an unusual idea: virtually everything is designed to welcome people traveling with their dogs and cats. The series begins with Murder, She Barked and follows Holly Miller, who returns to Wagtail to help her grandmother, Oma, at the Sugar Maple Inn. What initially looks like a temporary homecoming gradually becomes a new life for Holly, with the inn, her family, and Wagtail’s tightly connected residents providing the continuing framework for a series of murder investigations.
Wagtail is central to the books’ identity. Hotels, restaurants, shops, activities, and community events accommodate pets alongside their owners, turning the town into a destination for animal lovers. Davis takes the premise beyond simply placing dogs and cats in the background. Pet-oriented businesses, adoption events, competitions, celebrations, and visiting animal owners regularly create the circumstances in which characters meet, conflicts develop, and clues emerge.
Holly arrives in Murder, She Barked after learning that Oma has been injured. Her return coincides with a suspicious death, and it soon becomes apparent that her grandmother may also have been deliberately targeted. The investigation reconnects Holly with people from her past while introducing her to the peculiar social dynamics of present-day Wagtail. It also brings important four-legged companions into her life, including Trixie, a Jack Russell terrier, and Twinkletoes, a calico cat.
The Sugar Maple Inn becomes Holly’s anchor as the series develops. The family-run establishment brings a constantly changing population of guests into contact with permanent Wagtail residents, giving Davis a practical way to introduce new suspects without abandoning the intimacy of a small-town mystery. Visitors arrive with relationships, rivalries, and secrets of their own, while longtime residents contribute histories that Holly gradually learns as she becomes more firmly established in the community.
Oma is particularly important to that continuity. She is more than the grandmother who provides Holly with a reason to return home; her involvement with the inn and Wagtail makes her one of the foundations of Holly’s new life. Their relationship gives the books a strong family element alongside the mysteries, while recurring friends, employees, business owners, and potential romantic interests gradually expand Holly’s circle.
Seasonal celebrations play a substantial role. Christmas, Halloween, winter festivities, pet events, and other gatherings transform Wagtail while naturally assembling large groups of suspects. Titles such as The Ghost and Mrs. Mewer, Mission Impawsible, The Dog Who Knew Too Much, and The More the Terrier reflect Davis’s fondness for playful mystery references and animal-related wordplay, but the investigations themselves frequently involve serious motives hidden beneath the town’s welcoming exterior.
Animals occasionally provide useful behavioral clues, but Davis generally avoids turning them into implausible detectives. Trixie and Twinkletoes cannot explain what happened; Holly still has to observe people, recognize inconsistencies, ask questions, and reconstruct events. The pets instead broaden her social connections and sometimes react to people or situations in ways that cause her to look more closely.
Holly’s progression gives the series its longer arc. She begins as someone returning because her grandmother needs her and gradually becomes deeply invested in the Sugar Maple Inn and Wagtail itself. The town changes from somewhere associated with her past into the community she actively chooses.
That development is what gives Paws and Claws more substance than its pet-friendly premise alone. Wagtail provides the charm, the animals give the series much of its personality, and the murders supply the puzzles, but Holly’s growing attachment to her grandmother, the inn, and the people around her provides the continuity that carries the series from one investigation to the next.