No Second Chances

Starred review from October 27, 2014
At the start of Stacey’s extremely readable third Daniel Whelan mystery (after 2012’s No Holds Barred), the ex-cop agrees to help martial artist Joey Suzuki, a colleague from his days on the dog squad, to whom he owes a favor. Joey fears that someone is stalking his fiancée, Tamiko. Along with his trained police dog, Taz, Daniel moves into the cottage Joey and Tamiko share in a village outside Bristol in England’s West Country. One of Daniel’s duties is to drive Tamiko in a horse van to shows where she looks after a wealthy woman’s horses. On the surface, everything is serene, until the intrusion of Tamiko’s sister, Hana, pursued by her abusive partner, Jafari. Then a fatal hit-and-run reveals that a homicidal psychopath is lurking in the neighborhood. Daniel and Taz work as a perfect team in pursuit of the killer, and their warm relationship helps make this a feel-good book despite the mayhem.

June 1, 2016
Former police-dog handler Daniel Whelan has his hands full in his fifth adventure. Now working as a delivery driver for a feed dealer, Daniel arrives at the home of Lorna Myers and finds her confronting some thugs who are looking for her husband. Daniel and his faithful German shepherd, Taz, intervene, but it seems that Lorna's husband has vanished. When her daughter, Zoe, asks Daniel for help with her own problem involving her boyfriend, who is part of the insular Irish travelers, Daniel agrees and soon finds that the Myers family has major trouble. Daniel and Taz find connections between the disappeared husband and Zoe's boyfriend situation but quickly find themselves in grave danger. Some readers may wonder why Daniel lets bratty teenager Zoe manipulate him, but it's really Taz who provides most of the appeal here, along with the well-rendered British countryside. Followers of the robust pet-mystery subgenre should add Stacey's series to their TBR lists.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)