I mentioned before that I somehow missed the first book in Jeffrey B. Burton’s latest series, The Dead Years. You do not have to read that before picking up his latest Chicago K-9 thriller, The Second Grave. But, if you like these books, you might want to go back and read his Mace Reid K-9 mysteries, beginning with The Finders. Both series feature cadaver dogs, but in the first series, one of the dogs seems to have some special abilities.
Cory Pratt has two cadaver dogs, Alice and Rex. He’s in his early twenties, a college student who lives with his older sister, Crystal, who is a detective with the Chicago police department. The siblings are equal partners in this latest book as they investigate a thirty-year-old cold case.
When a family patriarch wanders away from a reunion, Cory and his dogs are called in to assist with finding him at Kankakee River State Park. It’s another team that finds the missing man, but Cory’s dogs are the ones who find two graves in the park, four bodies, all men. As the bodies are identified one-by-one, Crystal finds herself investigating a notorious crime from thirty years earlier. And, someone is watching, determined that the original crime remains unsolved, someone who even hires a fixer to make sure clues and people are eliminated.
Burton tells the story with flashbacks and multiple timelines. I’m a fan of cold cases, but multiple timelines are not my favorite. And, I wouldn’t recommend reading The Second Grave as I did. I sat it aside for a short time, and had a difficult time picking up the timelines and a couple characters when I returned to the book.
I’ll watch for the next book in this series. There’s a great deal of opportunity for future stories featuring Cory and Crystal. And, of course, the dogs, Alice and Rex. They truly are heroes in this new series.
Jeffrey B. Burton’s website is http://jeffreybburton.com
The Second Grave by Jeffrey B. Burton. Severn House, 2025. ISBN 9781448312436 (hardcover), 213p.
FTC Full Disclosure – Library book
