Monday, June 28, 2021

The Keepers by Jeffrey B. Burton

 

First Line: I spent the bulk of the call with my eyes shut, thinking I was still asleep and in some kind of lucid dream.
 
"The Finders" is Mason "Mace" Reid's pack of dogs trained to find dead bodies. The star of the pack is Vira (short for Elvira), a golden retriever. Called out from his home on the outskirts of Chicago, what Mace and Vira find in Washington Park at 3 in the morning starts a chain of events that soon has them running for their lives.
 
Mace and Chicago PD officer Kippy Gimm find themselves in a nightmare of treachery and corruption, not knowing whom they can trust on their quest for justice. 

~

Jeffrey Burton's second Mace Reid K-9 mystery is fast-paced and filled with tension and suspense as readers try to outguess Mace and Kippy. Are they asking for help from the right people, or are they walking right into a trap? This aspect of The Keepers certainly kept me turning the pages even though I usually knew when they were headed right for that trap. 

Of course, the biggest draw to this book and series for me is the canine one. The fact that Mace names his dogs after songs is endearing. His dogs are Elvira, Delta Dawn, the rambunctious puppy Billie Joe, Maggie May, and the alpha male named Sue. (Johnny Cash, anyone?) Probably the thing I love most about Mace's relationship with his dogs is that he listens to them. There's another series set in Los Angeles that I'm tiring of even though the stories are really good. Why am I tiring of them? Because every time the man's dog alerts him to danger, the man ignores him (and usually gets beaten up). Idiot! There's none of that stupidity here.

If you're in the mood for engaging, fast-paced stories filled with talented working dogs and the human who trains and works with them, find yourself the two books in this series, The Finders and The Keepers. I'm looking forward to Mace and Vira's next assignment.
 
The Keepers by Jeffrey B. Burton
eISBN: 9781250795861
Minotaur Books © 2021
eBook, 288 pages
 
Police Procedural, #2 Mace Reid K-9 mystery
Rating: A-
Source: Net Galley

13 comments:

  1. Sounds like a good book to me. Now I'm aggravated about the Los Angeles protagonist. Why not heed the dogs' warnings?
    In Paula Munier's last book, the dogs were always right.

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    1. Yes, and if I'm not mistaken, her characters paid attention to the dogs. I'm going to read one more book in that LA-set series, and if the main character ignores a warning from his dog, I'm going to stop reading it that very second and forget about reading any further in the series.

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    2. Yes, Mercy pays attention to the dogs' signals. But she says Elvis also has his own reasoning, and he doesn't always listen to her.
      When she tells him to go a certain direction to look for something and he races the other way, it's because Susie Bear is coming and he knows it. And he puts his friends first, of course.
      Another time, Mercy tells him to stay with her, but Elvis races off to chase the pursuer anyway. It ends up in a dangerous situation, but it's resolved.
      Mercy recognizes that Elvis thinks.
      I learned a lot about dogs' fantastic sense of smell from reading Alex Kava's books. They can even be trained to find people with specific viral diseases. Now dogs could be trained to detect COVID, I think.

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  2. Another draw for me is Chicago, of course. Another book to add and see if the library has it.

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    1. Any time I read books set in NYC or Chicago, I think of you. I also think of 5-hour layovers at O'Hare in the wee hours of the morning, but I digress.

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    2. I never flew to Chicago, only went by car. Our summer vacations would often be my father driving from Chicago to New York to see relatives, then driving back. And our big treat was to stay one night in a motel with a TV and swimming pool. So each way we'd get a treat.

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  3. I don't like it, either, Cathy, when characters behave stupidly. Someone who has trained dogs should know to pay attention when the dog alerts. I'm glad that sort of thing didn't happen here, and it does sound like a nicely-paced story, too.

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  4. A new book about working dogs! I'll have to check this series out. :)

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  5. I like the working dogs aspect as well. I love dogs and think they are so fascinating. I am glad to hear the man listens to the dog!

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    1. There's another working dog mystery series written by Alex Kava that I love. There will be a review of a book in the series within the next couple of weeks.

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  6. One aspect of Alex Kava's books is that she explains how dogs are trained to detect people, cadavers, things, explosives, and even diseases. They can be trained quickly.

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