Suspect

Review by New York Times Review

Old homicide cops never die; they just shuffle off to the cold case department. That's where Michael Connelly's maverick, Harry Bosch, found himself after his ill-considered resignation from the Los Angeles Police Department. The same spirit of insubordination periodically lands a career detective like Jussi AdlerOlsen's Carl Morck in some dead-end division like Department Q. And in the honorable tradition of the watch commander known as the Oracle in Joseph Wambaugh's Hollywood Station procedurals, every veteran seems to feel duty-bound to take one last crack at an unsolved murder before he retires. Come to think of it, every active homicide assignment involving a longtime serial killer seems to lead to the cold case files. Ian Rankin covers all these bases in STANDING IN ANOTHER MAN'S GRAVE (Reagan Arthur/ Little, Brown, $25.99). His incorruptible but moody hero, John Rebus, had second thoughts after retiring from the Edinburgh police force and has since made his way back as a civilian employee in the Serious Crime Review Unit. Rebus claims to find satisfaction working these old cases, "each one ready to take him on a trip back through time." But he doesn't come to life until the mother of a teenage girl who vanished on New Year's Eve in 1999 persuades him that her daughter's disappearance set the pattern for more recent missing persons cases, each occurring in the vicinity of the same major highway and all involving young women. Always impressive at handling plot complications, Rankin adds another twist by making Rebus redundant, forcing this ex-cop to take unorthodox action in order to muscle his way into an active investigation. As an outsider, he can ignore protocol and consort with criminals, to the point of activating hostilities between two major underworld figures. But his seditious behavior hardly endears him to the detectives working the current kidnapping, and finally goads an enemy in the complaints department into waging a vendetta to keep him from rejoining the force. ("I know a cop gone bad when I see one.") What's really at issue here isn't Rebus's maverick style but his character. Abrasive, secretive and unable to make nice with his superiors, he's not a team player - never was, never will be. At the same time, he's uncomfortably aware that he's out of step with the new age. As a sad Scottish toast goes: "Here's tae us / Wha's like us? / Gey few - / And they're a' deid." But once in a while some dinosaur like Rebus manages to rise up to show us how to get the job done. Maggie is one gorgeous girl, altogether worthy of playing a leading role in SUSPECT (Putnam, $27.95), Robert Crais's heart-tugging novel about two wounded war veterans who nudge each other back to life after suffering a traumatic loss. Maggie is a 3-year-old German shepherd whose best friend was felled by a land mine in Afghanistan. Scott James, a young officer with the Los Angeles Police Department, went to pieces when he failed to save his partner's life in a street shootout. Scott and Maggie survive their battle wounds, but they're so debilitated by posttraumatic stress that neither is fit for duty - until they partner up in the Metro K-9 Unit. Scott accepts Maggie for all the wrong reasons ("They do what you say, don't talk back, and it's only a dog") because he's desperate to return to the street so he can go after the professional killers who shot his partner. And although Maggie was bred to guard and protect, she has a lot of tough Marine training to unlearn before she can become a nonviolent cop. Although Scott is a good guy who brings high-grade skills to his detective work, it's Maggie who holds us captive, enthralled by Crais's perceptive depiction of her amazing capacities. Maggie may be "only a dog," but she's the leader of her pack. Tim Dorsey's nutty novels about a manic serial killer and his weed-smoking sidekick are fanciful, but they're not nonsensical. Accompanied by his habitually groggy friend Coleman in THE RIPTIDE ULTRA-GLIDE (Morrow, $25.99), Serge A.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [January 20, 2013]

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Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* The most multifaceted and appealing new protagonist in crime fiction this year just may turn out to be a dog and a hard-boiled dog, to boot. Maggie is a German shepherd trying out for the LAPD's K-9 unit, but it looks like she isn't going to make it. A former military dog, Maggie survived three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan but was severely wounded (her handler was killed) and now suffers from the canine version of PTSD. LAPD cop Scott James, shot during an altercation in which his partner was killed, also suffers from PTSD and has been assigned to the K-9 unit, but it doesn't look he's going to make it, either. Scott and Maggie immediately bond, but the hard-nosed sergeant who heads the unit doubts whether either one can measure up. Man and dog think otherwise, however, and as Scott continues off the books to investigate the shooting that cost his partner her life, he finds that Maggie has his back, just as his partner did. Taking a break from his critically acclaimed Elvis Cole and Joe Pike series, Crais launches what looks like a stand-alone, but anyone who reads 20 pages of this gripping and heartrending thriller will devoutly pray that it's the beginning of a new series. As Scott digs deeper into the death of his partner, he stumbles on a massive cover-up. That story is thoroughly involving and skillfully presented, but, frankly, it's hard for the reader to think of anything but Maggie. We become singlemindedly obsessed with the safety of this beautiful, sensitive, and stunningly intelligent animal, much as Maggie lives to protect and please Scott. Crais take us inside Maggie's head and, even more, her remarkably sensitive nose but always in the most believable of terms (this is no talking-dog cozy). A read-in-one-sitting thriller, plot- and character-driven in equal measures. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Crais has hit the New York Times best-seller list eight times, with Taken making it to number one. The track record will jump-start this one, but the book itself will do the rest.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Expect the expected in this stand-alone crime thriller from Shamus Award-winner Crais (The Two Minute Rule). Maggie, a weapon-detecting German shepherd who was seriously traumatized in Afghanistan after an IED killed her human partner and she was shot by a sniper, is struggling as a new member of the LAPD K-9 Platoon. LAPD officer Scott James-who was traumatized after unidentified gunmen killed his partner, Stephanie Anders, and seriously wounded him-makes it his mission to get past Maggie's defenses to make her functional again. An attractive female detective assists James after his own return to form enables him to take a more active role in investigating who gunned down Anders. Dog lovers who believe the animals are superior to humans in every way will find this lukewarm tale of redemption inspiring. Fans of Crais's sharp-edged Elvis Cole novels will find less to admire. Author tour. Agent: Aaron Priest, Aaron M. Priest Literary Agency. (Jan. 22) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Veteran thriller-maven Crais (Taken, 2012, etc.) returns with a pleasingly perplexing storyline fresh from the headlines. The heroine of the piece is Maggie, a 3-year-old German shepherd on her second deployment as a patrol and bomb-sniffing dog in Afghanistan. She is fiercely loyal to her handler--so when the inevitable happens, as it does in the evocative, grisly set piece that opens Crais' latest, she's thrown for a loop. Crais has to get a little didactic to provide the basis for innocent civilians: "Dogs suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder shared similar stress reactions with humans, and could sometimes be retrained, but it was slow work that required great patience on the part of the trainer, and enormous trust on the part of the dog." True dat. For her sacrifice, Maggie is not sent to live out her life on the farm, but instead teamed up with trauma-stricken, guilt-ridden LAPD officer Scott James, who, like Maggie, has lost his partner in action. The difference is that Maggie's handlers know who the bad guys were, whereas James has to go Rambo and find out who shot up him and his friend. The answer, revealed after a sequence of carefully plotted, well-described episodes, won't come as a surprise to anyone who's read James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential, though the resolution is more up-to-date. The story takes in vast swaths of Los Angeles in all its multicultural glory, with baddies in the drug and diamond and policing businesses alike. And it's oddly affecting, with Crais ably capturing the bond between humans and canines without veering into sentimentality. A solid, muscular thriller, well-spun.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Normal0falsefalsefalseMicrosoftInternetExplorer4st1\:*{{behavior:url(#ieooui) }}/* Style Definitions */table.MsoNormalTable{{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;mso-para-margin:0in;mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:#0400;mso-fareast-language:#0400;mso-bidi-language:#0400;}}They were on that particular street at that specific T intersection at that crazy hour because Scott James was hungry. Stephanie shut off their patrol car to please him. They could have been anywhere else, but he led her there, that night, to that silent intersection. It was so quiet that night, they spoke of it.Unnaturally quiet.*Stephanie frowned."You sure you know where you're going?""I know where I'm going. Just hang on."Scott was trying to find an all-night noodle house that a Rampart burglary detective had raved about, one of those pop-up places that takes over an empty storefront for a couple months, hypes itself on Twitter, then disappears.Scott was trying to figure out how he had screwed up the directions when he suddenly heard it."Listen.""What?""Shh, listen. Turn off the engine.""You have no idea where this place is, do you?""You have to hear this. Listen."Uniformed LAPD officer Stephanie Andress, a P-III with eleven years on the job, shifted into park, turned off their Adam car, and stared at him. She had a fine tan face, with lines at the corners of her eyes, and short sandy hair.Scott James, a thirty-two-year-old P-II with six years on the job, grinned as he touched his ear, telling her to listen. Stephanie seemed lost for a moment, then blossomed with a wide smile."It's quiet.""Crazy, huh? No radio calls. No chatter. I can't even hear the freeway."Stephanie reached to start the car, but Scott stopped her."Let's sit for a minute. How many times you hear silence like this?""Never. This is so cool, it's creeping me out.""Don't worry. I'll protect you."Stephanie laughed, and Scott loved how the streetlights gleamed in her eyes. He wanted to touch her hand, but didn't. They had been partners for seven months, but now Scott was leaving, and there were things he wanted to say."You've been a good partner.""Are you going to get all gooey on me?""Yeah. Kinda.""Okay, well, I'm going to miss you.""I'm going to miss you more."Their little joke. Everything a competition, even to who would miss the other the most. He wanted to touch her hand again, but then she reached out and took his hand in hers, and gave him a squeeze."No, you're not. You're going to kick ass, take names, and have a blast. It's what you want, man, and I couldn't be happier. You're a stud."Scott laughed. He had played football for two years at the University of Redlands before blowing his knee, then spent four years as an MP in the United States Marine Corps. He joined LAPD after the Marines, and took night classes for the next four years to finish his degree. Scott James had goals. He was young, determined, and competitive, and wanted to run with the big dogs. He had been accepted into LAPD's Metro Division, the elite uniformed division that backed up area-based officers throughout the city. Scott's transfer to Metro would come at the end of the week.Stephanie was still holding his hand, and Scott was wondering what she meant by it when an enormous Bentley sedan appeared at the end of the street, as out of place in this neighborhood as a flying carpet.At the moment the Bentley reached the intersecting street, a deep throaty growl shattered the perfect silence, and a black Kenworth truck exploded from the cross street. It T-boned the Bentley so hard the seven-thousand-pound sedan rolled completely over and came to rest right side up on the opposite side of the street. The Kenworth skidded sideways, and stopped blocking the street.Stephanie said, "Holy crap!"Scott slapped on their flashers, and pushed out of the car. He was three paces ahead, and closer to the Bentley."I got the Batmobile. You get the truck."Stephanie broke into a trot, and the two veered apart. No one and nothing else moved on the street except steam hissing from beneath the Bentley's hood.They had gone less than a car length when bright yellow bursts flashed within the truck, and a hammering chatter echoed between the buildings.Scott thought something was exploding within the truck's cab, then bullets ripped into their patrol car and the Bentley with the thunder of steel rain. Scott instinctively jumped sideways as Stephanie went down. She screamed once, and wrapped her arms across her chest."I'm shot. Oh, crap--"Scott dropped to the ground and covered his head. Bullets sparked off the concrete around him and gouged ruts in the street.Move. Do something.Scott rolled sideways, drew his pistol, and fired at the flashes as fast as he could. He pushed to his feet, and zigzagged toward his partner as an older, dark gray sedan screamed down the street. It screeched to a stop beside the Bentley, but Scott barely saw it. He fired blindly at the truck as he ran, and zigged hard toward his partner.Stephanie was clutching herself as if doing stomach crunches. Scott grabbed her arm. He realized the men in the truck had stopped firing and thought he and Stephanie might make it even as she screamed.Three men wearing black masks and bulky jackets boiled out of the sedan with pistols and shotguns, and lit up the Bentley, shattering the glass and punching holes in its body. As they fired, two more masked men climbed from the truck with AK-47 rifles.Scott dragged Stephanie toward their black-and-white, slipped in her blood, then started backward again.The first man out of the truck was tall and thin, and immediately opened fire into the Bentley's windshield. The second man was thick, with a large gut that bulged out over his belt. He turned away from the Bentley, swung his rifle toward Scott, and the AK-47 bloomed with yellow flowers.Something punched Scott hard in the thigh, and he lost his grip on Stephanie and his pistol. He sat down hard, looked at his thigh, and saw blood welling from his leg. Scott picked up his pistol, fired two more shots, and his pistol locked open. Empty. He pushed to his knees, and took Stephanie's arm again."I'm dying.""Scott said, "No, you're not. I swear to God, you're not."A second bullet slammed into the top of his shoulder, knocking him down. Scott lost Stephanie and his pistol again, and his left arm went numb.The big man must have thought Scott was done. He turned to his friends, and when he did, Scott left Stephanie, and pushed toward their patrol car like a broken crab, dragging his useless leg and pushing with his good. The car was their only cover. If he made it to the car, he could use it as a weapon or a shield.Scott keyed his shoulder mike as he scuttled backward and whispered as loudly as he dared."Officer down! Shots fired, shots fired! One-adam-sixty-two, we're dying out here!"The men from the gray sedan threw open the Bentley's doors and fired inside. Scott glimpsed passengers, but saw only shadows. Then the firing stopped, and Stephanie called out behind him. Her voice bubbled with blood, and cut him like knives."Don't leave me! Scotty, don't leave!"Scott pushed harder, desperate to reach the car. Shotgun in the car. Keys in the ignition."DON'T LEAVE ME!""I'm not, baby. I'm not.""COME BACK!"Scott was five yards from their patrol car when the big man heard Stephanie. He turned, saw Scott, then lifted his rifle and fired.Scott James felt the third impact as the bullet punched through his vest and ribs on the lower right side of his chest. The pain was intense, and quickly grew worse as his abdominal cavity filled with pooling blood.Scott slowed to a stop. He tried to crawl farther, but his strength was gone. He leaned back on an elbow, and waited for the big man to shoot him again, but the big man turned toward the Bentley.Sirens were coming.Black figures were inside the Bentley, but Scott couldn't see what they were doing. The driver of the gray sedan twisted to see them, and pulled up his mask as he turned. Scott saw a flash of white on the man's cheek, and then the men in and around the Bentley ran into the waiting gray car. The men from the Kenworth climbed inside with them.The big man was the last. He hesitated by the sedan's open door, once more looked at Scott, and raised his rifle.Scott screamed."NO!"Scott tried to jump out of the way as the sirens faded into a soothing voice."Wake up, Scott.""NO!""Three, two, one--"Nine months and sixteen days after he was shot that night, nine months and sixteen days after he saw his partner murdered, Scott James screamed when he woke. Excerpted from Suspect by Robert Crais All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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