Veronica and her Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Leda, are back on the case in this second book in the Veronica Kildare K-9 Mystery Series, pivoting from breathtaking wilderness rescues of missing persons into investigation mode.
Veronica possesses a natural affinity for training dogs—and a passion for locating missing people. As "Lawyers, Dogs, and Money" unfolds, Veronica trains peanut allergy alert and prison contraband sniffing dogs—and joins her search and rescue colleague, a Deputy Sheriff for Boulder County, in trying to ascertain the source of threats against Kadri Ilves, a co-worker of Sgt. Donovan's daughter at an import/export business. The woman being targeted is a native of Estonia and has a long history of advocating for social justice causes. As efforts to harm Kadri escalate in an alarming fashion, Veronica's team and Sgt. Donovan desperately attempt to pinpoint the person behind the threats.
Veronica's father assists the investigation by researching Kadri's background, including her work to end racial disparity in prison sentencing, and legal claims she has filed relative to disputed lands in Estonia. Has Kadri put herself in the crosshairs of the California branch of the Russian Mafia? Can Veronica and her canine partner, Leda, save Kadri before events turn deadly?
Veronica and her Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Leda, are back on the case in this second book in the Veronica Kildare K-9 Mystery Series, pivoting from breathtaking wilderness rescues of missing persons into investigation mode.
Veronica possesses a natural affinity for training dogs—and a passion for locating missing people. As "Lawyers, Dogs, and Money" unfolds, Veronica trains peanut allergy alert and prison contraband sniffing dogs—and joins her search and rescue colleague, a Deputy Sheriff for Boulder County, in trying to ascertain the source of threats against Kadri Ilves, a co-worker of Sgt. Donovan's daughter at an import/export business. The woman being targeted is a native of Estonia and has a long history of advocating for social justice causes. As efforts to harm Kadri escalate in an alarming fashion, Veronica's team and Sgt. Donovan desperately attempt to pinpoint the person behind the threats.
Veronica's father assists the investigation by researching Kadri's background, including her work to end racial disparity in prison sentencing, and legal claims she has filed relative to disputed lands in Estonia. Has Kadri put herself in the crosshairs of the California branch of the Russian Mafia? Can Veronica and her canine partner, Leda, save Kadri before events turn deadly?
I have said it before and I will say it again: dangling from a rope in midair is not all it is cracked up to be. In fact, it is the complete opposite—especially when that rope is pirouetting and twisting violently from side to side in the wind as if a demented puppet master can’t quite decide whether to smash us face first into a tree or scrape us across the jutting cliff edge getting uncomfortably close on our right-hand side. Muttering under my breath, I look anxiously sideways down the rope hanging below me and see Leda’s neat brown back paws about eighteen inches below my boots. Her head and shoulders are tucked in essentially right between my knees. Leda’s ears are twitching a bit, but she’s not crying or throwing herself around wildly (two things I have personally been considering for the past ten minutes of this buffeting descent by helicopter).
Believe it or not, she stretches out her legs next and curls her front paws around my right boot. Well, okay then—clearly no nerves out of her. Leda has always had a preternatural calm about anything work related, and sailing through the crisp Colorado air in looping spins seems to have had no effect on that trait. Our last encounter with a helicopter included a barrage of gunshots being leveled at us—not all of which missed—while we ran for our lives on the ground. So, my current antipathy toward these flying harbingers of doom is not that surprising. At least not to me.
Leda is my five-year-old Chesapeake Bay Retriever, and a search and rescue standout. We had no choice today regarding our unusual mode of transport. The sheriff of Cavan County, Colorado, urgently requested our help in the search for a missing backcountry hiker, Dylan Rose, who has been out of touch for three days. He is reportedly an experienced hiker but worryingly has not completed the last stage of the hiking plan he filed with the most remote and last chance ranger station at the edge of the vast and brooding range of the Ambush Mountains. This wilderness looks like it sounds, and it is the backcountry of the backcountry—the place only desperate villains, recluses, or hard-core hikers ever venture into. No easy way exists to climb into the last point it is believed the missing man hiked through and time is slipping away quickly.
Leda gained a lot of statewide notoriety after her locate and rescue last autumn of a famous scientist and expert trial witness, which incidentally resulted in murder charges being dropped against an innocent man. She does the hard work, and as I tell my dad all the time, I primarily just try to stay out of her way. Sheriff Burnside called me himself about this search, and I could not refuse. Hence the flying through the air on a rope situation.
Sunlight glints merrily off the underside of the chopper, mocking my dry mouth and uneasy feeling. An abnormally long pine bough snakes its spiky limb toward us as we sail past a little too close for comfort, and I ward it off with my foot. This feels like an alpine version of dodgeball; I would really like to avoid either one of us getting bashed in the face with the ball.
Finally, we have been lowered to within two yards of a minuscule clearing on the diagonal face of a high mountain meadow, and that green grass resembles a cozy blanket ready to cushion us on landing. I sincerely hope that is the case.
“Good girl, Leda. Almost there, mama,” I say brightly, mainly to keep myself calm. Hovering over the drop zone and pulling the release cord to set us down is the most troublesome part of the whole process, and I can feel my hands sweating, clammy inside my gloves. The air is snappily cold at this altitude. My cheeks sting with the chill, but the rest of me feels flushed. The scar tissue I have unluckily managed to accumulate on both shoulder blades smarts across my back. At long last, Leda’s feet dangle just above the shortish grass as the helicopter hovers above the glade, and I bring my focus to the uncoupling maneuver. Tugging the release cord attached to my harness, I lower Leda to the ground while grasping the swaying line tightly, and then drop thankfully with a grunt to one knee next to her. Straightening up quickly, I disengage Leda’s harness and my own completely from the clutches of the rope and gather her bulk tightly into my arms, pressing my face into her warm brown fur in relief. Freed from its burden, the rescue helicopter bobs higher in the sky like a balloon unmoored from a tether and starts to peel off east as I sketch a farewell wave to the pilot.
“That was not all that enjoyable, was it, girl?” I remove her dog goggles carefully and rub her head.
Leda gives herself a violent all-over shake, loops at high speed around the clearing to limber up, and skids to a halt in front of me, ready for action.
“You’re a brave one.” I ruffle her fur, pull out the collapsible water bowl stowed in my backpack, and pour her a drink from her bottle.
She watches me calmly out of her inscrutable yellow eyes as I remove my helmet and pull my tangled auburn braid over my shoulder. Leda is more than just my pet. She is my partner, my balance, and on more than one unpleasant occasion, my savior. I dig around in my stuffed pack and pull out my compass, creased area map, and the large baggie containing the scent article belonging to our target—a Colorado Rockies ball cap with the salt-stain pattern of dried sweat dotting its purple edges. Another chopper can be heard approaching on the same flight path we just used, and I call Leda to the side of the clearing as our search and rescue support person, Sgt. Tim Donovan of the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, comes sailing through the sky toward us. It is almost more nerve-racking watching his approach than it was living it myself. But he disconnects from his harness safely and strides across the glade to our position with a huge grin on his tanned face, his red crew cut fairly bristling with intensity.
“Come on, girl. We’ve got work to do.”
Lawyers, Dogs, and Money is the second book in author Tracy Carter's marvelous working dog-centric series, the Veronica Kildare K-9 Mysteries, and continues the suspense-filled story of the title character and her canine partner, Leda, a Chesapeake Bay Retriever rescue. Carter set the bar high with the series' excellent debut, Dogged Pursuit, but she definitely met and surpassed it in this exciting follow-up.
The story unfolds from Veronica's point of view, and she is a calm and steady protagonist, although still healing from the past trauma of losing her fiancé, Zach, at the hands of a serial killer. Formerly a legal assistant in an Ohio district attorney's office, she relocated to Colorado to start over as a working dog trainer and handler far from the now-incarcerated murderer. She and Leda have gained renown as a successful team in search and rescue and drug detection in the Boulder area. Her narrative is told with a strong and confident voice, and she comes across as genuine, engaging, and very relatable as she deals with her lingering grief and learns to let go of her lost love. She's always on the go, with numerous irons in the fire; however, she reacts authentically rather than super-humanly, knowing she needs regular rest and respite.
In addition to Veronica, there are several well-developed and very engaging secondary characters integral to her personal life and business operations, most notably, her father, Bob Kildare, and her assistant trainer, Michael Fletcher, a young man she rescued from off the streets of Denver in the previous book. I enjoy Michael's contribution to the story immensely and am delighted with his continued success in his studies and growth as a trainer and handler. However, I was completely charmed by Bob, with his unwavering support of his daughter, his skills in the kitchen, product demonstrations and reviews, and dogged investigatory computer research. Bob has been a widower long enough, and there is a hint of a romance in his future.
The book's opening sequence is attention-grabbing and exceptionally well done, absolutely setting the pace for what's yet to come. There is a central mystery to solve with a wide array of possible suspects and motives that must be checked out and eliminated. Just when I felt I knew where the threat was coming from, new details would emerge to send the characters off in an alternate direction. I thought that the author accurately depicted reality when the parties to the investigation were pulled away to work on other things and couldn't devote their 24/7 to the one case, as often happens in many mystery stories. The dog training scenes were fascinating, informative, and entertaining, as were the interesting tidbits the characters disclosed about Kadri's birth country and the business of imports/exports. The author uses the Colorado setting to advantage, painting vivid and enticing pictures throughout. I did have a very tiny issue with Veronica's tendency to over-explain on occasion, using definitions that sounded like they came straight out of a dictionary; however, these were few and far between.
Even though this is the second book in the series, new readers shouldn't have any trouble catching up and enjoying the story. With its engaging characters, exciting plot, and non-stop action, I recommend LAWYERS, DOGS, AND MONEY to mystery readers, especially those who enjoy stories featuring working dogs, search and rescue, drug detection, or books set in Colorado.