All dogs go to heaven. But some mutts deserve to die.

There is a sinister plot afoot:  a vulnerable, innocent victim is about to die, and it all began when Momma Shakes spent her income tax return on that cursed French mini-poodle purse-dog.

Welcome to Swampton County, S.C., where the sign in front of the Cattywampus Church of Christ reads: “All dogs go to heaven, so there’s hope for you, too!”

Swampton is normally a peaceful place, but there is trouble brewing here this week and blood lust is in the air.

It all began when Momma Shakes, a local woman who fraudulently tells the IRS that her children, nieces and nephews, husband, and all of her “fur babies” are her dependents and exemptions, used her hefty federal income tax return check to buy that full-blooded, registered-with-papers, French mini-poodle.

Have you ever heard of a lap dog? Well, this is a purse dog, and just as tiny and cute as it could be, and it goes with Momma Shakes everywhere, from shopping at the Piggly Wiggly to that flea market in Fairdale, riding right there in her handbag with just her precious little head poking out.

But the husband, Jimmy Shakes, who is normally a sane, nonviolent man, now has jealous rage in his heart and murder on his mind.

While he eats leftovers, the purse dog gets that fancy food from the refrigerated section of the pet store an hour’s drive away.

While Momma Shakes refuses to get off the couch to hand him a roll of toilet paper through the bathroom door, she picks the dog’s poop up in little baggies and saves it for the vet.

After Momma Shakes told him she didn’t have enough tax return money to replace his worn-out-bald truck tires, the dog went off to obedience school—no, Canine Academy, she calls it—and she paid full tuition, no scholarship!

When he asked her to spring for a new camo hunting bag, she laughed in his face then went out and purchased a new Louis Vuitton handbag for the mini-Frenchie to travel in.

The day he told her he desperately needed new work boots, she logged into Amazon Prime and ordered The Pocketbook Princess a matching sweater/collar/lease ensemble from some doggie boutique in California, then loaded the animal up and took her to the spa for a puppy massage and mani-pedi.

Something just ain’t right here, Jimmy tells himself, looking down at his dirty little toe poking from a hole in his work boot, and then over at the dog eating something that looked like caviar out of a gold can.

As bitter hate swells in his heart, a sinister idea begins to form in the darkest recesses of his demented brain...

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