The talking-animal trick is usually reserved for such lofty ends as selling car insurance or resuscitating Eddie Murphy’s career.

Not true for the hot fiction debut of the summer, The Dogs of Babel. A meditation on love and loss, Carolyn Parkhurst’s novel is the story of Paul and his beloved wife, Lexy, who dies one afternoon under rather mysterious circumstances. Was it accident or suicide?

The only witness was the dog, Lorelei.

Paul, a linguist by trade, decides that if he can teach the dog to talk, he’ll be able to figure out what happened to Lexy. Suffice it to say, you’ll be sucked in by the very first paragraph. Parkhurst has managed to take an absurd topic, strip it of snark, and transform it into a poignant and engrossing story.

Yes, it sounds weird. But grief can do strange things to a person.

And, as Paul says, “everyone is a skeptic until they have a reason to believe.”

The Dogs of Babel is available online from amazon.com.