You won’t have to wait a chapter or two for something to happen in Under the Dog Star by Sandra Parshall. It’s full of suspense from beginning to end. And the suspense doesn’t take long to become edge-of-your-seat.

Rachel is a veterinarian. She lives with her boyfriend, Tom, a police captain. Both are involved with a problem in their county—a pack of feral dogs is roaming at night onto private property, sometimes injuring or killing livestock. Rachel wants to capture the dogs along with Animal Control. She knows that they were people’s pets, many of them stolen recently from backyards. Tom needs to stop some of the citizens from killing these dogs before Rachel can do that.

It isn’t long before a man is killed by a vicious dog. But Tom knows this was not a dog from the pack. This was a murder by dog. In other words, some person instructed the dog to attack. And those who blame the feral dogs need to be convinced of that.

Tom suspects that the vicious dog is part of a dog fighting ring. But he needs to find it before he can confirm it.

Because the murdered man’s own dog was with him when he was attacked and is now hurt himself, Rachel makes house calls to attend to his injuries. During these visits, she sees how dysfunctional that family is and worries, especially, for the welfare of one young adopted daughter. During Tom’s investigation of the murder, he, too, notes this and becomes frustrated with the uncaring attitudes of all but the youngest child.

And now Tom, as I said, a police captain, makes a deal with an attempted murder and vandalism suspect. I think this book needs a prosecutor.

Under the Dog Star is the fourth book in a series about Rachel. Because I haven’t read the first three (yet), I can’t say when Tom becomes part of the series. But I can tell you that, in this book, Tom is as much a main character as is Rachel, maybe more.

I was very pleased with Under the Dog Star. If the only thing I can criticize is the lack of a prosecutor, you can be assured that this book is a great read, suspenseful cover to cover. I recommend it.

I really enjoyed this book. There was never a time when something wasn't going on and it was dragging. I didn't know the killer until almost the end and even then there were a few twists I wasn't aware of.
The only thing I wished was that I had read the other books in the series so I knew more of the backstory. I wanted to know more about Rachel's life.
Great book!