3.5⭐️

<i> Veronica Kildare cannot believe her luck – being shot at, again, by the bad guys. The sound, the feel of the bullet, and the hatred resonate for more than just the transitory moment of impact. She has relocated to a new state, but brutality has rampaged into this life as well.

As the survivor of a senseless act of violence in her former life, Veronica struggles to recover from the lingering physical and emotional scars by working as a dog handler near Boulder, Colorado. Empowered by her intense bond with her search and rescue and drug detection dog, Leda, she finally begins to shake off the pain of her past. Then Veronica is drawn into the puzzling search for a scientist who has vanished near Rocky Mountain National Park. Dr. Randy Jeffers has inexplicably disappeared on the eve of his testimony in the high profile murder trial of a pro basketball player and the police are baffled.

As Veronica and Leda traverse rugged Roosevelt National Forest in a desperate search testing the limits of their abilities, it is not initially clear who has targeted Dr. Jeffers, or why. But it becomes shockingly obvious that someone will stop at nothing to silence him forever. The kidnappers with murder on their mind have guns, but Veronica has Leda and her own blossoming resilience as her weapons in their struggle for survival. </i>

I really, really wanted to like this book. It had a good premise, and it seemed to start out strong, especially for a fellow petcare pro whose views seemed in-line with the author, but then…. The details. So. Many. Superfluous. Details. It felt at times like I was reading someone’s food log, combined with a dog training instruction manual, with a dash of a detailed resume of every expert in any field mentioned at any point. The M.C. made sure to tell us in detail about every drink, food, or snack she or any other character ate at any point in the narration.

I think there was a decent novella underneath it all, after editing out a good portion of the detail and some of the awkward conversations that were clearly meant to provide us with more background. But I lost track of the story at times, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of detail.

If you like details and descriptions and backgrounds, or are willing to forgive anything for a mystery that includes dogs, then this could be the book for you.

Thank you Tracy Carter, Books Forward Audiobooks, BookBaby, NetGalley for providing this ALC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

Dogged Pursuit is the debut novel by Tracy Carter and the beginning of the Veronica Kildare K-9 Mystery series. Having lived through a violent assault that her fiancé, boss, and many others did not, former legal assistant Veronica Kildare has relocated to Colorado outside of Boulder. Having been trained by an expert dog trainer and having taken over his business, Veronica is now ensconced in the 7 acre Dogged Pursuit compound that she shares with her father Bob, a reviewer for outdoor equipment. She has her trusted Chesapeake Bay retriever Leda, to whom Veronica owes her life, her father and his trusted black lab Ripley, and a training facility where she trains dogs in obedience, service, and for very particular tasks. Her business also includes doing drug sweeps for schools and businesses, as well as doing searches for missing persons.

Having gotten turned around in Denver after one such sweep, Veronica encounters a group of street thugs attacking an innocent puppy in an alley. Before thinking, Veronica approaches feeling she can talk them down, but must physically take down the perpetrators. With two down, the third thug pulls a knife and comes after her. With one call Leda is there to effectively protect, but then the last thug also pulls a knife. At that point, a young, fit, black man comes through an establishment’s back door and comes to Veronica’s aid. When all four thugs are down, and 911 is called, Veronica learns the young man, Michael Fletcher, has aged out of the foster system, has been feeding the stray pup, and is living in the back storeroom of this bodega. After the perpetrators are taken away and statements are given, Veronica invites Michael to join them at the compound. He is conscientious, needs family, and is kind to animals. He is also interested in learning, a natural for her business.

As Veronica is brought into help find missing scientist Dr. Randy Jeffers, who is set to testify as an expert witness in a highly publicized case where a pro basketball player is accused of killing his wife. But no one knew what that search would bring and the danger Veronica would be in.

This is an exceptional debut novel! Extremely well plotted with thoroughly described settings and interesting characters, this book will leave the reader hanging repeatedly just to catch them before they reach bottom. So well done! Kudos to Ms. Carter!! I very much enjoyed this book and do recommend it!

I was super excited for this book, dogs + mystery sounded right up my alley!

Overall, while it was an interesting story, my mind often wandered during the overly descriptive sections. The reader was kept up to date with the investigation process through the character dialogue which made it feel completely unnatural and tended to include a lot of details that I didn’t feel were required and honestly got a bit boring.

Character wise everyone was just average. No one stood out as super relatable or interesting. I assume Michael will become more involved in the later releases in this series because currently he is just there and provides absolutely nothing.

Finally, I don’t think it was necessary for the MC to have such an unhealthy relationship with food especially without providing a content warning regarding it.

Thanks so much to NetGalley for providing this copy in exchange for an honest review.

I don’t know if anyone else has fallen prey to this, but I recently got caught up in NetGalley’s library of Listen/Read Now database Good grief!!! It’s not as if I don’t have plenty to read from my own reading shelves. In this case, it was this little blurb in the book summary that reeled me in “will appeal to dog lovers, outdoors enthusiasts, and mystery lovers alike.” Wow!!! They nailed me on that one! How could I resist? In my defense, the book did have the kind of stuff I love in a story: a strong, bad@$$ woman who is a survivor and considers the company of doggies comforting, especially her beloved and trusted, search and rescue doggie, Leda😊

The book summary lays out the primary storyline, so I won’t repeat it here. Early in the story, Veronica rescues a stray doggie that is being attacked by four sadistic teenagers and cements her hero status in my eyes😊 There is also a secondary storyline of Veronica offering a job, along with room and board for another teenager, Michael, who came to Veronica’s assistance in the attack by the four @$$#*!%$ who were attacking the poor stray doggie. Michael has been feeding the stray dog, whenever he can, and has named the timid doggie, Coco.

Veronica owns and runs a dog training and boarding facility with the help of her dad, Bob, on their seven-acre property outside of Boulder, CO. They have their own homes on the property and there is an apartment out in the building with the dog kennels, which is where Michael will live. In addition to Leda, there are several other doggies in the story, with the main ones being Bob’s dog Riley and another doggie, Gemma, that Veronica is training to scent for some citrus farmers down in FL. Veronica also trains dogs to scent track. It’s amazing to learn about the scenting abilities of dogs. There are also a couple of dogs that Veronica is training and boarding, along with Michael’s Coco. Working with Michael in training him to assist Veronica becomes a secondary storyline.

Early in the story, Veronica and Leda are contracted with local PD and search and rescue services to find the missing scientist. The scientist is an expert witness for a local murder trial for a wealthy, celebrity, athlete who is accused of killing his wife. While some may not enjoy learning about the inner workings of a search and rescue team, I love it and have always been fascinated with search and rescue K9 teams. Carter does an excellent job of describing the many facets of a search and rescue K9 team and the work and training that she and Leda have.

By the halfway point, Veronica and the rest of the search team have discovered info that assists in the search for the scientist. Into the second half, Veronica and Leda begin the search and rescue again for the scientist again. It’s a night of some intense scenes trying to get off the mountain alive. I look forward to reading more about Veronica and Leda's Dogged Pursuits.

The story is a solid 3star read. While I love learning about search and rescue K9 teams, I found some of the minute details of some of the background research of the case surrounding the scientist and his work a little much at times. A couple of times I found my mind wandering during some of those passages. I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Alyssa Baumann, who did a good job with the narration. I want to thank NetGalley and Books Forward Audiobooks for sending me this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

#NetGalley #BooksForwardAudiobooks #DoggedPursuit

Book Title: Dogged Pursuit
Series: Veronica Kildare K-9 Mystery series Book #1
Author: Tracy Carter (Debut Author)
Narrator: Allyssa Baumann
Publisher: Books Forward Audiobooks - BookBaby
Genre: Mystery Thriller
Audiobook Pub Date was:March 22,, 2023
My Rating: 3 Stars
Pages: 258

Story is set in the Rocky Mountains Nat’l Park;
Leda an abused rescue now a search and rescue dog is the star of this story!

Story starts when Veronica Kildare a dog handler is shot again. She is still struggling from a blood bath that many innocent people as well as children were killed including her fiancée. At that time Veronica changed old life and became a dog trainer.
She still is recovering from both the physical and emotional scars. Now finds working at a job she loves helps.
I found the story interesting does go into a lot of details regarding the training necessary for a dog to be a search and rescue dog ~ Since we haven’t trained our now fifteen year dog to sit and we just keep giving her treats this seemed amazing to me!

The mystery in this story is to find the kidnapped scientist as well as who did it,
Story is a lot Veronica and her dogs the mystery is more of a side bar.
I am a big mystery fan so was disappointed the mystery part was secondary to the dogs.
Obvious Tracy Carter is very knowledgeable when it comes to this subject.

Want to thank NetGalley and Books Forward Audiobooks – BookBavy for this audiobook.
Publishing Release Date was March 22, 2023.

There are many things to like in this flawed-with-potential book. I am predisposed to enjoy books about K-9s, and super-dog Leda, who can track humans, sniff drugs, do agility and attack on command is a prominent character along with her trainer/handler Vanessa. Woven into the story are neat facts such as using dogs to detect citrus greening disease in trees, while traditional and balanced training methods are also included. Likable secondary characters enhance the story. Carter lovingly describes the wildlife and plant life of the Colorado setting and the mystery has plenty of false trails. Where I struggled with the story is the inclusion of too many side trails and details that, while interesting individually - ex: the process of desalinization - served to slow and distract from the plot. There was never a sense of urgency conveyed, even in times of fighting for survival. The narration also played in to this problem: Baumann doesn’t vary much in inflection or pace, contributing to characters sounding like they were reading a report at times. Despite these issues I would read (listen) to another in this series as the core world is an inviting one for a dog-loving mystery fan.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a review audio. All opinions expressed are my own.

I received a copy of this audio book from Netgalley and am leaving an honest review.

I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to those who enjoy mysteries and thrillers especially if you liked them combined with outdoor settings and dogs. The story follows Veronica and her SAR/drug detection K9 Leda as they help law enforcement with tracking down a key witness to a high profile murder case after he goes missing. There is great character development, especially amongst your main characters, although even secondary characters are well developed. This is a slower paced thriller spending the vast majority of the book setting the scene and providing background and excessive information on the parks and surrounding area. There was a lot of repetitive information that could have been cut but not as bad as some books I've read. Overall I would recommend it and will check out other books by this author.

CW
The protagonist (and also another female character) has a very unhealthy relationship with „unhealthy“ food. (biscuits etc.) This is interspersed throughout the book and accompanied by a certain „compulsion to exercise in order to be allowed to eat sweets“.


Summary

Veronica Kildare cannot believe her luck – being shot at, again, by the bad guys. The sound, the feel of the bullet, and the hatred resonate for more than just the transitory moment of impact. She has relocated to a new state, but brutality has rampaged into this life as well.

As the survivor of a senseless act of violence in her former life, Veronica struggles to recover from the lingering physical and emotional scars by working as a dog handler near Boulder, Colorado. Empowered by her intense bond with her search and rescue and drug detection dog, Leda, she finally begins to shake off the pain of her past. Then Veronica is drawn into the puzzling search for a scientist who has vanished near Rocky Mountain National Park. Dr. Randy Jeffers has inexplicably disappeared on the eve of his testimony in the high profile murder trial of a pro basketball player and the police are baffled.

As Veronica and Leda traverse rugged Roosevelt National Forest in a desperate search testing the limits of their abilities, it is not initially clear who has targeted Dr. Jeffers, or why. But it becomes shockingly obvious that someone will stop at nothing to silence him forever. The kidnappers with murder on their mind have guns, but Veronica has Leda and her own blossoming resilience as her weapons in their struggle for survival.



For me, the audiobook was much more dog comfort than thriller and I mean that in a positive way. Tracy Carter has put an incredible amount of love and detail into this book and takes us on a journey that dog lovers will adore. We learn an endless amount about dogs and different breeds and training. Even little details like „dogs smell so and so good“ were included and add a depth to the book that I loved!
In general, the writing style is very detailed. Tracy Carter takes a lot of time to describe environments, food, people and everything else, so you can perfectly imagine where the characters are.

The book has a very slow pacing, which I personally like. It takes its time so that we can get to know the characters (both humans and dogs) and acclimatise to the environment. Also, the pacing feels very realistic to me and nothing is hyped up too Hollywood-esque.
In fact, I was a little confused at the end because the Netgalley summary didn’t really fit the book for me. As I said at the beginning, it is much more about Veronica’s life with her dogs and her dog school than about the case. (Which is rather hyped up in the English summary).

I really enjoyed the book in terms of the dogs and loved how much info we got about dogs but also tracking equipment. At times it felt like a non-fiction book wrapped up in a novel and that was really great! You can just tell that Tracy Carter has done her research, or just knows her stuff.
The whole story was logically constructed and extremely lovely.



My biggest (and probably only) criticism, and also the reason why the stars went down so far, is the lack of content warning for dealing with food, kcal and body.
First of all, I want to say that it is perfectly fine if a character has an unhealthy relationship with food and their own body. In my opinion, however, this should be indicated beforehand - especially when it comes to bear as it does in this book.
I myself would not have listened to the audiobook if I had known that this theme would be present again and again. This behaviour towards food and body adds nothing to the story or character in my opinion and comes so unpredictably and in such quiet moments that it pulls me out every time. It is also noticeable that only female characters seem to have these problems, our protagonist is not the only one after all.
For many people this may not be a problem, but for people like me with eating disorder backgrounds it can be very problematic. (Like for me, for example)

The protagonist keeps saying / thinking that she can only eat peanut biscuits now, for example, because she had to walk all day, or did sport, etc. Also, it is always an inner monologue and sounds as if she is justifying herself for eating. (And then, of course, she has to do more sport. Once there is a dialogue with another person in which the protagonist and the other character are relieved about their physical exertions during the day and that they can now eat ice cream etc. But of course they are only allowed to do that because they have burned a lot of kcal.)
Also, our protagonist can be in a really good mood and it promptly drops when she eats a biscuit. (I’m sorry, that just makes me so angry because there was never any mention of that in the content description. It just makes you feel like biscuits etc are crap and that you’re not allowed to do that and if you eat them, you’re not allowed to be happy). This is a really unhealthy relationship to food and body and I recommend people who have problems with this not to read / listen to this book!

The English audio book was very good! The narrator read very well, although a little slowly for my taste. But you can just turn up the speed and it’s great. I would have liked a little more creativity in the variety of voices, but that’s complaining at a high level.


If there were content warnings, I would give 4 to 5 stars, because the book itself is really great!