(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).
(This review may contain spoilers).
I like animals – or most of them, at least. Cats are my favourite, but dogs (and wolves) are a close second.
It was interesting that the beginning of the book was written from the perspective of Maggie. It’s impossible to truly know what goes through an animal’s mind, but I felt that the author showed a particularly good understanding of the behaviour of dogs and their relationships with humans.
Scott was a particularly likable character. I found it really easy to relate to them and it was good to see how he bonded with Maggie. I felt that as much of the book was focused on them as partners as on the case itself – and I felt that was one of the stronger points of this book.
The other characters were fairly interesting as well, though I would have liked to see a bit more of them. Some of the characters didn’t appear all that much, so when they did, I got a bit confused about them.
I felt that the PTSD both Scott and Maggie were suffering from came across really well, as did the patience involved in working with a dog who’d experienced that. Some of the things made me smile, while other scenes made me a bit sad.
The writing was particularly good in this book. I only have one real nitpick – paragraphs. I noticed that a character would perform an action and then their speech would be a new paragraph, instead of being in the same paragraph. That did happen quite a lot.
I found this book to be really easy to read and the tension came across really well. I really cared about the characters and the plot. I would definitely be interested in reading more books by this author, especially further ones that focus on Scott and Maggie.
Ink of Blood 