I look forward to the next book in the series. Overall, this was an entertaining novel and a great start to a new series. Themes explored included serial killers, police procedures, HRD training, the relationships between dogs and people, and much more. This is one that I did not see coming even though there were enough hints that I conceivably could have deciphered it. The plot was clever, intriguing, creative, intense, suspenseful, and riveting.

The prose was engaging, well-written, compelling, and compulsively reading. The secondary characters are well-rounded and the characters seemed believable and not contrived. They have clear goals with believable motivations and show appropriate emotions. The characters are compelling and well-developed for a first book in a series. What follows is a terrific mystery with lots of action, twists and turns, a little humor, and some fantastic moments with Mace’s family his four HRD dogs. With a serial killer targeting young women, the Chicago police department asks for Mace’s help. He recently acquired and began training a golden retriever named Vira. However, his specialty is training dogs in human remains detection (HRD). Mason (Mace) Reid lives outside of Chicago and trains dogs with various end goals such as obedience and missing persons tracking, as well as searching for drugs and explosives. Burton is the first book in the new Mace Reid K-9 Mystery series. Mace takes some dangerous risks and learns too much, soon finding that the killer is on his trail, determined to take out the “Dog Man” and his meddling animals.THE FINDERS by Jeffrey B. He has a mentor with a much more extensive track record. Turns out the velvet choker killer is not acting alone. The trail leads to a home with a hidden basement room, and, well, you can guess the rest. Vira had no clues to this man’s involvement, no scent on the remains, but incredibly she picks him out of the curious crowd of onlookers at the crime scene. When a rescued golden retriever named Vira suddenly lands in his lap, he starts to take an interest in the new team member and in the female cop, Kippy, who saved the dog from a grim fate and delivered her to his door.Īfter Vira performs a near-miracle at the next crime scene, Mace helps track down a serial operative who kidnaps girls and keeps them until he tires of them, killing them and tying a velvet choker around their necks. His recent divorce still haunts him, and he lost his favorite dog.

As a human remains recovery specialist, he helps out at crime scenes with his team of cadaver dogs - who, as any dog lover knows, has become his family.

The finders by jeffrey b burton