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A review by lynguy1
The Finders: A Mystery by Jeffrey B. Burton
5.0
THE FINDERS by Jeffrey B. Burton is the first book in the new Mace Reid K-9 Mystery series. It is also my first book by this author. 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. However, his specialty is training dogs in human remains detection (HRD). He recently acquired and began training a golden retriever named Vira. With a serial killer targeting young women, the Chicago police department asks for Mace’s help. 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.
The characters are compelling and well-developed for a first book in a series. They have clear goals with believable motivations and show appropriate emotions. The secondary characters are well-rounded and the characters seemed believable and not contrived. The prose was engaging, well-written, compelling, and compulsively reading. The plot was clever, intriguing, creative, intense, suspenseful, and riveting. The final twist caught me by surprise. This is one that I did not see coming even though there were enough hints that I conceivably could have deciphered it. Themes explored included serial killers, police procedures, HRD training, the relationships between dogs and people, and much more.
Overall, this was an entertaining novel and a great start to a new series. I look forward to the next book in the series. Additionally, I want to read this author’s FBI Special Agent Drew Cady mystery series starting with THE CHESSMAN.
Thanks to St. Martin’s Press – Minotaur Books and Jeffrey B. Burton for an ARC of this novel via NetGalley and the opportunity to provide an honest review. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.
The characters are compelling and well-developed for a first book in a series. They have clear goals with believable motivations and show appropriate emotions. The secondary characters are well-rounded and the characters seemed believable and not contrived. The prose was engaging, well-written, compelling, and compulsively reading. The plot was clever, intriguing, creative, intense, suspenseful, and riveting. The final twist caught me by surprise. This is one that I did not see coming even though there were enough hints that I conceivably could have deciphered it. Themes explored included serial killers, police procedures, HRD training, the relationships between dogs and people, and much more.
Overall, this was an entertaining novel and a great start to a new series. I look forward to the next book in the series. Additionally, I want to read this author’s FBI Special Agent Drew Cady mystery series starting with THE CHESSMAN.
Thanks to St. Martin’s Press – Minotaur Books and Jeffrey B. Burton for an ARC of this novel via NetGalley and the opportunity to provide an honest review. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.