This gritty, complicated and compelling thriller centers on a dog with quite a history!

It opens in Tijuana, where the dog, Joe, and Roman form a cash and drug detection team working for a cartel.

A rival cartel attacks and Roman loses Joe, who is eventually adopted by American journalist Bettina Blazak and taken back to California with her.

Bettina digs recklessly into her dog's story, and gradually learns that he had two previous owners and DEA training.

Events escalate to a dramatic, violent and surprising conclusion. It's an extraordinary story, with the parts I enjoyed most from the canine point of view.

Joe is a very good dog. Always eager to please the humans on his team, he regularly outperforms every other dog when it comes to sniffing out contraband items, despite not even coming close to fitting the image of the usual working canine:

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[H]e looks more like a common street dog than a cash-and-drug-whiffing savant. Joe is a trim fifty-five pounds, short haired, long legged, and saber tailed, with rust ovals on a cream background. He is terrier-like and dainty footed, but his gull wing ears protrude from what could well be a Labrador retriever’s solid head. To these heavily armed men, accustomed to the burly German shepherd dogs, Malinois, and Rottweilers favored by the DEA and Federales–and the pit bulls adored by narcotraficantes–Joe looks amusing and almost cute.
END QUOTE

Joe adores his human partner, who goes by the name The Roman when they’re working together with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. So far, they’ve been extremely successful at sniffing out and stealing hundreds of thousands in cash and drugs from the rival Sinaloa Cartel. But when a furniture store bust is interrupted by vengeful Sinaloans, Joe is shot and separated from The Roman, who must hightail it back north across the United States border in order to evade capture himself.

Bettina Blazak is an intrepid reporter for the Coastal Eddy, a newspaper out of Laguna Beach, California. When she decides to do a human interest story about a heroic veterinarian and his latest rescue operation just south of the border with Mexico, the last thing she expects is to fall in love with a recovering Joe. She renames him Felix and takes him home with her, publishing their story in print and online, with accompanying video. Little does she know that this innocent act will put her in the crosshairs of the cartels herself, as the rival gangs work either to get Joe back or to eliminate him entirely from the equation.

Fortunately for Joe, he could have no fiercer protector than his new owner:

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Bettina Blazak–always up for a fight when told what she can and cannot do–feels a familiar spark beginning inside her. She’s had that spark ever since she can remember. She likes it. Considers it a genetic plus, a Polish-Irish thing. And it can become a flame in the blink of an eye. Then a fire. The fire that made her fight her brothers when they turned on her, the fire that forced her to outshoot everybody on the trap range at the Olympic team tryouts, the fire that sends her down Coast Highway on her road bike at forty miles an hour, that makes her paddle hard to drop in on a hollow five-foot wave at Brooks Street beach in Laguna.
END QUOTE

When people start coming around with inquiries as to Felix’s past life and future availability, Bettina finds herself becoming increasingly possessive of the sweet dog, regardless of whether the requests seem legitimate or otherwise. Things only really start getting complicated, though, when she finds herself falling for one of the people claiming to be Felix’s rightful owner. Will she be able to sort out everyone’s motives, and protect herself and her beloved dog, as forces with greater firepower than she could ever dream of begin to close in on them?

The chapters from Joe’s viewpoint were by far the best part of this canine-centric book. Dog lovers – and anyone who enjoys reading about K9 units – will love the insight into how dogs tick and how they’re trained to assist law enforcement. The chapters of Joe performing his duties, coupled with his good-hearted nature, were engrossing and informative.

The interpersonal relationships otherwise fell a little flat for me. I did however very much enjoy the chapters with Teddy, another claimant to Felix’s ownership, and Wade. I’m glad that the right calls were made at the end, no matter how reluctantly. Joe absolutely deserves the best, no matter what wringers the humans in his life have to go through to ensure that that happens.

Wow! An unusual tale. Some is from the dog's viewpoint, which normally I don't like. This time it was fine and added interest. I gave it five stars as I was glad it ended the way it did. Strange and not particularly likeable characters, but one still cares about them enough to read to the conclusion. Thanks to the publisher for providing a copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary.

Bettina Blazak, is a young, savvy journalist who works for the local Laguna Beach newspaper, “The Coastal Eddy.” She is researching a human interest series on street dogs when she comes across a wounded stray dog at a vet clinic in Tijuana. She adopts the dog, names him Felix and begins featuring him in her blog. Apparently, Felix has led and interesting life. Felix, a/k/a Joe was first owned by a boy who had to give him up after his parents died, was then trained by the DEA for stiffing out illegal drugs, then was sold to a dog trainer, Dan who used him to help one Mexican drug cartel steal from another. It was during one of these missions he was wounded. Bettina’s blogging about her pet places Joe/ Felix in the limelight. Everyone who once owned him wants him back and the cartels want him dead. The story takes an interesting twist when parts are told from the dog’s point of view. Nothing complex just basic canine needs… I’m hungry, I’m horny, who’s in my pack. Dan takes the role of the bad guy but he develops a romantic interest in Bettina. His conflicts in his character create real danger for Bettina and her dog.
I’ve read a lot of T. Jefferson Parker’s work all the way back to Laguna Heat in the late 1980’s and this is his first attempt to include a dog in the plot. As I read this book I kept thinking about Robert Crais’s venture into canine land when he wrote Suspect. Amazingly in the acknowledgements Parker credits Crais for the inspiration. Both books are good entertainment especially for dog lovers.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance look.

As soon as I got far enough along in this book to get to know the lovably loyal drug-sniffing pooch Joe - and the dangerous life he's been leading for most of his life - my first thought was this: please, please don't let anything worse happen to him. Of course, I won't say whether I got my wish or not - that would spoil things for others - but suffice it to say I spent quite a bit of reading time on the edge of my seat.

When they're well written, dog stories tug heartstrings to the breaking point; one of the best books I've ever read, for instance, is Garth Stein's The Art of Racing in the Rain. This book isn't like that at all - there's far too much crime and mayhem - but still, it's impossible not to sympathize with Joe as he gets shuffled (willingly or otherwise) from owner to owner through no fault of his own. He starts out with a kid, Teddy, who is forced to give him up to a man who trains dogs to help DEA agents locate drugs. When that job doesn't pan out properly, he goes to Dan Strickland, who runs a successful self-defense training center and secretly involved with a dangerous drug cartel in Tijuana. It is there that Joe is injured and found by Bettina Blazak, a journalist who came looking for a human interest story and ended up with a dog - who she renames Felix.

From that point on, the story - often told from Felix/Joe's perspective - explores the experiences of the characters from different time periods, weaving them all together amid plenty of action into a tapestry that's framed as the ending. It's mostly satisfying, but it's also the most likely scenario given what readers learn about the characters along the way. Overall, I found Joe to be a bit too perceptive (despite his obvious smarts)and Bettina too little given hers, but it all worked out well. Thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to read and review a pre-release copy. Another one well done by this talented author.

Joe/Felix is dog rescued from a clinic in Mexico. He was brought in by a young boy with a bullet wound. Reporter Bettina falls in love with him and adopts him right before he is to be euthanized. Little does she know this dog is not just any dog. A lot of people want him, some want to kill him. She finds herself right in the middle of the cartel and the DEA. Who can she trust. There are so many people claiming they own the dog but she is determined to keep him. Bettina and Joe/Felix soon find themselves targets in a dangerous game. Some of this is written from the viewpoint of the dog. This is a different story than you would usually expect from this author. It was entertaining and you couldn’t help but root for a happy ending, whatever it might look like. Thank you to net galley for an advanced readers copy.

Earlier this year, when I reviewed T. Jefferson Parker’s book A Thousand Steps, I wrote: When I first read T. Jefferson Parker’s Laguna Heat back in 1985, I had recently moved to Santa Cruz and was ecstatic to be living in a small beach town again — because I grew up in South Orange County (specifically in and around Laguna Beach) and graduated high school in 1965. So I know the area well (at least the area as it was then, because overdevelopment has ruined most of the good things about the area). Anyway, I have read all of Parker’s books since then, loving many and being “meh” about a few…but I always like the ones set in Orange County, so I was extremely happy to receive a copy of A Thousand Steps “. Thanks to Tor/Forge Books, I received a copy of his upcoming book, The Rescue, in exchange for an honest review.

So, I’m a dog lover, a reader of mysteries, and I grew up in Southern California– pretty much the trifecta of people for whom this book will be a favorite. In it, a journalist named Bettina Blazak is writing a story about the street dogs and includes a visit to a shelter in Tijuana, Mexico (just across the border from San Diego) as part of her research. On a whim, she adopts one of the dogs. He turns out not to be a street dog at all, but rather a drug-sniffing dog formerly “employed” by the DEA. As Bettina and her pup enter a “deadly criminal underworld” together, she realizes that her dog is once again a target of the bad guys.

The story of the bond she develops with her beloved dog will warm the hearts of dog lovers, and the mystery will please Mr. Parker’s many fans. Those of us who have a connection with Southern California will get a bonus of terrific writing that captures the setting very well (a particular aspect of Parker’s writing that is appreciated by many). Four stars.

I loved this book. Though I was afraid who would get the dog in the end. Joe is a great dog and his people were interesting.