Book Review:  Breaking Creed, by Alex Kava

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A Former Soldier and His Service Dogs

I couldn’t resist this audiobook when I saw one of the main characters was a service dog.  Grace, in this case, is a rescue dog with a growing reputation for finding and identifying people, drugs and more.  Perhaps not your standard expectation in a service dog, she is a Jack Russell terrier.  Small but wise.

The Story

She and her partner/handler, Ryder Creed are called out to a fishing boat in search of drugs.  Instead the dog finds children, trapped below the hold of fish. American children.

Next, on routine duty at an airport, that same dog scents drugs on a young girl at an airport.

Those two events put Creed in the crosshairs of a major drug cartel and a vicious assassin. This particular assassin doesn’t just like to kill.  He prefers to find what his victims fear and use that in their deaths.  What follows are attempts on the lives of anyone Creed cares about;  his partner Hannah, Maggie O’dell and Creed’s dogs.   That was their mistake.  Coming after Creed.

Creed will do anything to protect his dogs.

Maggie O’Dell

Maggie O’dell is the recurring character from Alex  Kava’s bestselling series by the same name.  She has s big role in this series too, which adds to the story.  As an FBI agent she often runs into Creed working with his dogs on  assignments. But there is also a clear  attraction between them that perhaps we will see develop.

I haven’t read any of her series, but enjoyed Breaking Creed so much that i will soon remedy that.  Maggie plays a strong, capable agent, exceptional at what she does. Between the two of them they appear able to handle nearly anything.

The New Ryder Creed Series

I’m hooked.  This is a great new series I will enjoy following. Learning how much dogs are able to do with training is fascinating.  As in Kill Switch and Suspect, a trained dog makes capable partner who put their lives on the line. Even to the point of acting independently, away from their trainer.

There is another important topic that is touched on in the book that I hope we will hear more about.  Jason, a soldier who lost his hand in the Middle East, has struggled to recover both physically and mentally.

The ability animals have to help with that recovery is powerful. Whether to aid in PTSD or in finding a new purpose for a veteran’s life, it is an important factor that deserves more attention.

The Next in the Series,  Silent Creed

Released July 28th, 2015, Silent Creed is getting rave reviews.   Creed and his dog, Bolo, are called to North Carolina after a huge mudslide to help recover the living and the dead.  Since the slide included a top secret government facility, Maggie O’Dell is sent to the scene as well.

What they find is that some of the bodies were gunshot victims.  That sparks its own investigation and its own fears, since those at the facility were working with old medical experiments.  Those experiments may now be  in the wrong hands, including some in the government itself.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Merry Citarella, often writing as Merrci, writes on a wide range of topics. Recently relocated to the Oregon Coast in the northwest United States, she frequently writes travel features on the beautiful Pacific Northwest. She specializes in health and aging, Alzheimer’s Disease, food, lifestyle, and book reviews. For more information you can see her on The Writers’Door. You can read more articles here or at her websites Mystery Suspense Reviews .

Author: Merry Citarella

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