Book Review- Suspect by Robert Crais

Suspect by Robert Crais

 

 



Robert Crais has created a new vision in crime drama fiction. In this book we meet Maggie, a beautiful 85 pound German Shepherd. She was a patrol dog with the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan until a bomber and snipers kill her handler and leave her too badly wounded to continue as a Marine.

 

We also meet Scott, an LAPD officer scarred and suffering  post traumatic stress after he is shot and his partner are wounded in a bizarre ambush in a poor and run down part of Los Angeles.

 

Scott, attempting to return to active duty in the LAPD joins the K9 unit. There he falls under the spell of Maggie a dog who seems so destroyed by her experiences in Afghanistan that she will never work again.

 

Together they come to understand each other slowly, and Maggie proves that some of the best detectives never need say a word or carry a gun.

 

I read this book in one sitting, I could not put it down and loved every moment of the story.

 

Crais has put in a lot of work building great characters in the past, but for me Maggie is there in the best of Crais's characters beside Elvis Cole.

 

The pace is always tense, you worry enough about the characters individual well-being to make the book a great read. All is not tension though, there are lots of releases especially at the K9 training facility where the instructors try to instill a little dog into the recruits.

 

Crais has definitely put a good deal of time into looking for background into German Shepherd behavior, and it pays off with a good story.

 

You may buy Suspect from my Amazon.com Store here.

I Have a New Dog on the Way

This last year has been my longest time in thirty years with no dog in the house.  I now feel that it has been an empty year lots of things have happened. Three hospital stays, starting a new online business, all that fills time but there has been an empty space on the floor next to me that should have been filled with a dog.

Sadly my next dog will not be a German Shepherd. It will also not be a pet. It will be either a Labrador or Golden Retriever. It will be a working dog, a guide dog from Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael, California.

We will meet in just about eight weeks time. I am very excited about the prospect of having a working dog. This will be a whole new experience . A whole new level of being around a dog.

We will train for two weeks together in San Rafael and San Francisco and then graduate the school on November 2.

I plan on writing on my experience with a guide dog using this blog. German Shepherds will still be here with a little added portion of anecdotes and information about guide dog life.

Sadly, for me at least, the German Shepherd is no longer the preferred dog for guide dog work. This will be a change of breed for me. But I am sure we will all learn something new over the coming years.

The Great Horticulturist

I well remember when Polly was little more than a puppy, aged about six monthsold she became enthralled with gardening. In particular bulbs.

I had for several years been growing  several dozen Bluebell flower bulbs from seed. I had collected the seed from a nearby wood and grown the plants on every year until the bulbs became large enough to plant back in the wood to spread the bluebell flowers.

One day I spent a morning planting a set of year old bulbs in a border of my garden to grow on for ripening for planting out later. Polly sat quietly by my side, watching my every move. She showed no direct interst in the bulbs. Just wanted to show the usual German Shepherd love of being in a supervisory role.

That afternoon I went out shopping and when I returned home. There was a very proud Polly, sat at the edge of the living room carpet with a beautifully neat and straight row off freshly dug up Bluebell bulbs. The very same bulbs she had watched me plant just a few hours earlier.