Sasha Eastman is a video journalist who is the latest person to need assistance from the ‘True Blue K-9 Unit: Brooklyn’. If you have followed this linked series of suspense stories which began with Copycat Killer, you’ll know that each book took us a little closer to clearing up the tragic case we first encountered; a child left in the garden, parents murdered, in a seeming copycat of a decades-old cold case. I have enjoyed these tales so much, because of the up-to-the-minute investigations, the realistic characters, and of course the incredible dogs.

DELAYED JUSTICE closes the case, but only after resumed menace. Detective Bradley McGregor and his partner King, a Belgian Malinois, are near the journalist in a bakery when a stalker suddenly fires a shot through the glass. While the lady is unharmed, she’s badly shaken, and Bradley and King pursue the man, but Brooklyn is too crowded to let an attack trained dog randomly loose. Sasha had been denying to herself that she had a real stalker, but now she’s got to put her trust in the highly trained police.

I like that Sasha is a journalist who tries to focus on good news stories. We can all sometimes feel overwhelmed by bad news stories, and it’s nice to get a lighter note at the end of a bulletin. Sasha tries to give such positive stories real prominence. She’s partly doing this, I felt while reading because she lost a relative to violence. When she opens up to her appointed guard, Bradley, she already knows that he also lost a family member to violence, so they start to bond.  Bradley is that unfortunate person who, as a young teen, was a suspect for a while in a major case, and even though he was cleared the suspicion which hung over him stopped him from forming close relationships. With anyone except his dog, that is! King and Bradley are a smart and agile team. Shirlee McCoy writes dogs extremely well.

All the K9 units are required to contribute to finding the evildoer; the bomb sniffers, cadaver finder, attack trained dogs and their brave handlers. The other departmental staff is checking fingerprints, DNA, CCTV and records. Sometimes we can feel strong just by reading about dedicated, united people. This romance is also lightly inspirational, meaning it is suitable for readers from teens to adults. DELAYED JUSTICE should definitely be on your reading list, after which the only question is, where will the next K9 series be set? I can’t wait.