Suspect by Robert Crais

Scott James is a Los Angeles police officer.  One night, he and his partner stop, on the way to dinner, just to listen to the silence in a commercial district.  All of a sudden, a Bentley pulls into the intersection in front of them, and is immediately hit by a truck.  A fire fight ensues, and Scott's partner, Stephanie, is killed.  A Gran Torino appears, and the gunmen pile in and escape.

Scott is wounded in several places, and has to have multiple surgeries, screws and plates to be put back together.  He's eligible for medical pension, but he's not really considered fit for duty, and he doesn't want to go back to being a patrol cop, but he can't face retirement, either.  He wants to find Stephanie's killers.  Then he hears that there's a position open in the K-9 unit, one in which police officers work with dogs.  He lobbies hard to be transferred to the K-9 unit.

The day that new officers are assigned their dogs, he meets a dog named Maggie.  Maggie is a military dog, a German Shepherd trained to sniff explosives and IEDs, who served three tours of duty in Afghanistan.  Maggie's handler, Pete, was killed in a suicide bombing/sniper ambush, and she suffers from PTSD.

Scott admires her loyalty:  Maggie never left her handler, even when she was shot by the sniper. She's had several surgeries, too.  Scott and Maggie bond almost instantly.

Maggie's not really fit for duty, either.  But everybody at the K-9 unit loves her, and they feel sorry for Scott.  They bend the rules so that Scott can have some time to work on Maggie's PTSD.

At the same time, the cops assigned to unravel the shooting and find Stephanie's killers have retired, and the new cops bring Scott in to give his statement again and give him a little bit of a summary of the case to date.  Before long, Scott's using Maggie's exceptional sniffing abilities to do a little extra-curricular investigation of his own.

I loved this novel.  It opens with a prologue that describes the ambush in Afghanistan from Maggie's point of view.  Maggie gets some more story-telling time later in the novel.  For me, Crais really created suspense equal to that I'd experience at a movie.  I found the rising action at the end of the novel really exciting, and found the happy ending that much more satisfying as a result.  I would heartily recommend this novel to any reader of thrillers and especially to thriller readers who are also animal lovers.

Robert Crais is known for the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike series but this is a stand-alone novel.

Interestingly, Crais worked as a television screenwriter on many popular TV series:  Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, Quincy, Miami Vice and L.A. Law.  Several of the novels I've read that were written by screenwriters seemed to me to be very proficient in giving a) lots of plot, b) hooking you right away, c) keeping the story moving.  The novels I have in mind are The Rosie Project and The Heist, Fool's Gold and I'm sure there have been others I can't think of now.  To me, Suspect felt different.  The exposition and characterization wasn't quite as detailed as it might have been in the hands of another novelist, but it seemed to me to have a certain satisfying depth.  I really enjoyed it as much or more as The Secret Place.  \

According to a friend of mine, if you enjoyed Suspect, you might also enjoy The Search by Nora Roberts.  Another book you might enjoy is Kill Switch by James Rollins.

Crais' follow-up novel, The Promise, is a continuation of the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike series.  But fans of Scott and Maggie -- Maggie, especially -- will be delighted to know that star in the story, too.