Can't Run With the Big Dogs

Veronica Kildare K-9 Mystery, #4

by

Tracy Carter

Excitement, suspense, and the heroine's special relationships with working dogs make this tale of mystery and hidden menace a must-read!

Can't Run With the Big Dogs is the fourth book in Tracy Carter's dog-loving Veronica Kildare K-9 Mystery series, featuring the savvy dog trainer and her amazing dog, Leda, and their wonderful circle of family and friends, each with their own working dogs and passion for helping others. In this latest adventure, Veronica and Leda are called upon to trail the paths of several missing, lost, and abducted people, and readers get a front-row seat as a couple of service-dogs-in-training learn their new craft. 

Veronica, a lifelong dog lover, has built a new life as the owner of her own dog training facility and the human half of the area's premier search-and-rescue team, alongside her Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Leda. But before settling in Boulder, she had been the victim of an horrific ambush when her district attorney boss and sheriff's deputy fiancé had been gunned down by a violent criminal who then eluded capture. While the gunman's burned-out vehicle with an unidentified body inside had eventually been discovered, there had been no positive proof that his reign of terror and threats to Veronica were over. Throughout the series, the lingering threat that Tommy Arnett was still out there, watching and waiting, has really enhanced the foreboding and suspense of the stories, and this book provides the same brooding background menace. Still, a note of hope lingers as everyone waits for the results of new DNA testing. 

Veronica's relationship with her delightful professional baseball player beau, Ricardo, has helped heal her emotional wounds from the past, and their time together is warm and comfortable. Veronica is supported by her loving and talented father, Bob, who tests and rights reviews for outdoor outdoors equipment and has a clear genius for manipulating and processing out information via the Internet, besides being a dab hand in the kitchen, and by Michael, the young product of the state foster system, now living on site while attending college and learning to become a K-9 handler and dog trainer himself. Veronica's best friend Sylvia, her husband, Boulder PD Sergeant Tim Donovan, and their brood of two sets of twin teenage daughters round out her close-knit circle of friends. As a group, they focus on service and making a positive impact on their environment and community. While facing some difficult situations, they always strive for excellence and maintain a positive attitude, which becomes very important when partnered with a working dog on assignment. 

Yet, the highlights of the book are those featuring Veronica's work with the dogs. Beyond Leda and her exciting rescue operations in the surrounding Colorado wilderness areas, this book also features her adventures with two fledgling service dogs. Sky, an 18-month-old Australian cattle dog mix and shelter rescue, is undergoing training to sniff out and alert nursing home staff to the presence of C. diff, an insidious bacteria that can be deadly to the elderly. Decla, a two-year-old Irish Red and White Setter who lost her human family in a car accident, is finding a new home and purpose as a drug-detection dog at the local horse-racing track. Decla's storyline intersects with the main plot of strange goings-on at the track, where already two grooms with important information have gone missing. 

Finally, the author chooses an exceptionally versatile setting by placing the action in the Boulder/Denver, Colorado, area. The descriptions of the locations are vivid and so critical to the action that readers can almost feel the bitter cold and damp, smell the crisp, fir-scented air, and feel the loose, rocky trails beneath their feet as Veronica and Leda trail the scent of someone who is having the worst day of their life. 

With its engaging cast of characters, vibrant settings, and compelling plot, I recommend CAN'T RUN WITH THE BIG DOGS to readers of mysteries, thrillers, and suspense. 

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advance Review Copy from Reedsy Discovery.