I've always been comforted by the animals in my life, especially my two current feline rescues. When I retired as an attorney, I began working on a murder mystery series, Dead Lawyers, as therapy for my time in the legal biz. The main character, not a pet person, ends up with two cats, and I enjoyed writing humorous scenes on how his life turned topsy-turvy. I needed to explain the backstory, and wrote Murder at the No-Kill Animal Shelter, a prequel novella to the series. I can’t think of anything better than combining animals and mysteries. I’m gladly an award-winning member of Cat Writers Association, along with Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America.
FBI Special Agent Maggie O’Dell is on the hunt for a serial killer who strikes at truck stops and rest areas. Ryder Creed, an injured vet suffering from PTSD, has returned home from Afghanistan without his bomb detection dog, and opened a company specializing in training rescues to become air scent dogs. Law enforcement laughs when Creed appears on the scene to aid O’Dell, accompanied by Grace, a Jack Russell terrier. The laughter ends when Grace locates bodies above and below ground as well as underwater.
As Creed and O’Dell work the case, Kava weaves in information about the differences in dogs tracking missing persons, finding cadavers, and sniffing out drugs, explosive devices, and even certain health conditions. This book launched her Creed series and is tightly written, suspenseful, and educational. Grace, Creed, and Maggie are exceptional characters and a joy to read. So good!
For decades, tired travellers have stopped at rest areas on America's epic highways to rest, refuel and get a bite to eat, but little do they know that one man's rest stop is another's hunting ground. For years the defenceless, the weary and the stranded have been disappearing along the highways and byways, vanishing without a trace. When FBI special agent Maggie O'Dell and her partner, Tully, discover the remains of a young woman in a highway ditch, the one clue left behind is a map that will send Maggie and Tully on a frantic hunt crisscrossing the country to…
I have been hooked on Kate Shugak from this first book, and Stabenow has just completed #23 in the series. Kate is a no-nonsense Alaskan native who lives a simple life on her homestead in a one-room cabin on the part of the 20 million square acres of national park near the Quilak Mountain range. She’s an ex-investigator for the DA’s office who occasionally takes on complex murder cases for law enforcement agencies. Accompanied by her yellow-eyed, 140-pound husky/wolf mix, Mutt, Shugak manages to terrify most people, including criminals, with her knowledge of human nature and kick-ass attitude. Mutt is there to serve and protect Kate.
Stabenow makes Kate’s world come alive, threading the history of her Niniltna tribe and Aleut legacy throughout each book, and managing to engage and educate me with every single story.
Kate Shugak returns to her roots in the far Alaskan north, after leaving the Anchorage D.A.'s office. Her deductive powers are definitely needed when a ranger disappears. Looking for clues among the Aleutian pipeliners, she begins to realize the fine line between lies and loyalties--between justice served and cold murder.
This book opens with Maggie, a German shepherd's point of view, while on patrol in Afghanistan. She is an explosives detection dog (EDD) who watches her alpha die in an attack and is herself strafed multiple times by sniper fire. Returned to the USA, she ultimately ends up in the LAPD K-9 program for possible law enforcement retraining. Scott James, an LAPD patrol officer, suffers from PTSD after he’s shot numerous times and his partner killed. James wanted SWAT but is offered K-9 and chooses Maggie, instead of the dog assigned to him.
Throughout the book, Crais gives us Maggie’s point of view as she and Scott work together to heal their various scars and solve the complicated crime which killed James’ partner. No one holds much hope for either of these two, but man and dog battle PTSD and learn from each other.
Robert Crais is known for his Elvis Cole and Joe Pike PI series. This book was a standalone until he revisited Maggie and Scott in the 2015 book, The Promise. Well-written, touching, and great mysteries.
LAPD cop Scott James is not doing so well. Eight months ago, a shocking late-night assault by unidentified men killed his partner Stephanie, nearly killed him, and left him enraged, ashamed, and ready to explode. He is unfit for duty - until he meets his new partner.
Maggie is not doing so well, either. A German shepherd who survived three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan sniffing out explosives before losing her handler to an IED.
They are each other's last chance. Shunned and shunted to the side, they set out to investigate the one case that no one wants them…
Mercy Carr, former military police, inherits her fiance’s sniffer dog, when Martinez is killed in action. Elvis is a Malinois suffering from canine PTSD while Mercy’s reeling from a broken heart. She and Elvis take long walks in the Vermont mountains and one day the dog alerts them to explosives. At the same time, the twosome finds a crying baby alone in the woods and a shallow grave with human bones.
They are joined by Game Warden Troy and his 100-pound Newfoundland, Susie Bear. Mercy and Elvis put themselves in physical danger as both lack boundaries in their grief. Troy and Susie provide backup, and work alongside to solve the mysteries. Munier paints a picture of life in the backwoods complete with homegrown militia and a terrorist attack scheduled for July 4. Interesting characters in a new series with well-written parallel stories. #4 has just been published.
It may be the Fourth of July weekend, but for retired soldiers Mercy Carr and Belgian Malinois Elvis, it's just another walk in the remote Lye Brook Wilderness - until the former bomb-sniffing dog alerts to explosives and they find a squalling baby abandoned near a shallow grave filled with what appear to be human bones. U.S. Game Warden Troy Warner and his search and rescue Newfoundland Susie Bear respond to Mercy's 911 call, and the four must work together to track down a missing mother, solve a cold-case murder, and keep the citizens of Vermont safe on potentially the…
Billy, an injured Iraq war vet, returns home and finds no real place for him at his former job. Milo, a German shepherd trained by the same police department, has aged out at seven years and is also unwanted. Since Milo and Billy previously worked together, they team up, and with Rosenfelt’s tongue-in-cheek humor, commit robberies to survive. Why not use the dog’s training to grab items from criminal hands and remove them? But on the fourth outing, things don’t go as planned.
Milo takes off and buries an envelope he took from the perp, Billy is framed for murder, and attorney Andy Carpenter, who loves dogs, agrees to represent the dog, jailed for his own safety. Carpenter’s snarky sense of humor leaps off every page as he twists and turns the justice system for yet another dog-related cause. Rosenfelt has rescued thousands of dogs through his Tara Foundation and has written both an Andy Carpenter and a new K Team series. These books are perfect for those who like dogs and enjoy New York-style humor.
A German Shepherd police dog becomes implicated in a murder and if his owner - an Iraq war vet and former cop-turned-thief - is convicted, the dog could be put down. Few rival Andy Carpenter's affection for dogs, and he decides to represent the poor canine. As Andy struggles to convince a judge that this dog should be set free, he discovers that the dog and his owner have become involved unwittingly in a case of much greater proportions than the one they've been charged with. Andy will have to call upon the unique abilities of this ex-police dog to…
Why would someone burn down kennels and murder a kindly old caretaker at a no-kill animal shelter? Cheater’s Lake Homicide Detective Mark Walsh is assigned to the case. He’s schooled in murders—pet ownership, not so much. But along the way as he investigates, two terrified felines manage to wriggle themselves into his bachelor life and teach him about the world of animal rescue.
Detective Walsh must use his experience and wits to keep the shelter director and her German shepherd, Henry, safe and solve the crimes. If he succeeds, the shelter is fully back in business. If he fails, the consequences could be cat-astrophic!
To hide a corporation’s failure to properly service a space ship, Captain Jonas Stryker is prosecuted but saved from imprisonment by a dying man, who hires Stryker to collect asteroids for their mineral content. Stryker soon finds he must stop a shadowy corporate group called The Board, who employ space piracy, terrorism, and even weaponised asteroids to overthrow the Federation government.
Set in Lagrange points, space stations, the Moon and outback Australia, it is a fast-moving story with some speculative future technology. If you were interested in the NASA attempt to alter the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos, you might…
When a trial to cover-up a corporate failure ends Captain Jonas Stryker's career, he wants revenge against The Board, a ruthless, shadowy organization with limitless funds that employs space piracy, terrorism, and even weaponised asteroids. Posing as a space miner, Stryker learns that The Board wants him killed, while a young female SCIB police agent wants retribution against him for having her career spoiled at his trial. As Stryker avoids attempts to kill him, he becomes the only chance to prevent The Board from overturning the Federation Government and imposing a Fascist-style rule. A story of greed, corruption and honour,…
