After gunshots echo through the summer night on Mount Macedon, Detective Sergeant Zoe Mayer and her loyal service dog Harry race to the summit at first light. What they find looks like a grisly murder-suicide: an alleged fraudster named Piers Johnson, and his lawyer Antony Peterson, both dead from bullet wounds, a gun lying nearby.
Something about the scene doesn’t stack up. There are plenty of suspects, but no one seems to be telling the truth. Zoe’s instincts are ignited, as the pressure to find and charge the culprit becomes intense. And that’s when Peterson’s teenage daughter Sarah is snatched off the street.
The Good Dog is Zoe’s toughest assignment yet, a murderous conspiracy of greed, deceit and violence. She knows that Harry may be her only chance to crack the case.
What a cracking read! One of Australia’s finest crime mystery writers, Simon Rowell, first introduced us to Zoe and her service dog Harry in The Long Game, which he followed up with Wild Card. Now, he’s back with the third novel in his wonderfully original Detective Zoe Mayer series, featuring the best dog-detective duo I’ve read in a long time.
I wouldn’t quite put Rowell’s work in the cosy crime category – it’s too real and gritty for that. But it’s not your typical Aussie noir either. Rowell hits the sweet spot, marrying an edge-of-your-seat mystery that you’re compelled to read to the end, with a team of crime fighters whose company you genuinely want to spend time in. There’s also wonderfully authentic mental health rep, with lead detective Zoe grappling with her PTSD in a very real and relatable way.
And then, of course, there’s Harry. Boy, do I love Harry! The Good Dog himself. His characterisation is subtle, with his amazing capacities as a service animal presented for what they are – never embellished, overdone or anthropomorphised. He’s a hero in the quietly loyal way that all the best dogs are.
If you’re yet to meet Zoe and Harry, don’t fear – you can definitely read this installment as a stand-alone, since each book in the series introduces a new case to solve. This one is riveting and multilayered. We meet a host of characters with plausible motives, and the conclusion is believable while being totally unexpected. Once you’re done, you’ll no doubt feel compelled to go back to Rowell’s previous books. Having plowed through this page-turner in a day, I certainly didn’t feel ready to leave the characters behind!
For those of you already up to speed, you’ll just need to wait for Rowell’s next release. In the meantime, where’s the TV adaptation? I’d love to see this dynamic duo take the screen!
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