[I received an electronic review copy of this book from Netgalley and Minotaur Books in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.]
Summary
Corey Douglas is a former-cop-turned-private-investigator. His business partners are Laurie Collins (wife of much-loathed defense attorney Andy Carpenter), Marcus Clark, and Simon Garfunkel, Corey’s German shepherd. Corey and Simon worked together at the police department before retiring.
Their first case as a team is for local judge Henry “Hatchet” Henderson. He’s a tough, by-the-book judge who is being blackmailed for something he didn’t do. He’s been set up thoroughly. And if he doesn’t do what the black mailers want – something that is still a mystery – they’ll expose him with their fake evidence.
The “evidence” against the judge wasn’t thrown together on a whim. The planning goes back at least 18 months. And there’s a ton of money behind it, too. Who could have been targeting him for all this time? And why? What’s their endgame?
That’s what the K-Team has to figure out.
Review
I’ve been looking forward to this since I read Dachshund Through the Snow last year when readers first met Corey and Simon. And I was not disappointed. I enjoyed the new point of view character and seeing all of my favorites from the Andy Carpenter series.
The mystery here is fantastic! Tons of twists – some I saw coming and others that caught me completely by surprise. One even made me exclaim out loud. There were a lot of things to unwind in this case. It goes to the very last page, too. In fact, for awhile I thought the case might carry over to the next book, but it all gets settled in the end.
I would have loved more with Simon the German shepherd in this one. He doesn’t have a very big role in this case due to the nature of what was being investigated, but I still wanted more. I also wanted more development of Corey’s character. There were a few spots that felt either repetitive or over-explained. We got a lot of Corey waffling over his dating relationship and his concerns about some of the less-than-legal aspects of the investigation. Each of those pieces was a great part of showing us who Corey is, but they were covered often throughout the story.
If you enjoy top notch mysteries with law enforcement/legal system characters (and some great dogs), don’t miss this spin off – or the source material in the Andy Carpenter series. The author has two Andy Carpenter books releasing later this year – Muzzled (currently scheduled for a July release) and Silent Bite, a Christmas story (scheduled to release in October), and I will absolutely be reading both of them!