Seven dogs are adopted by families all across the country who do not know their history . . .
“Of one thing I am sure,” Glenn declares. “These dogs are perfectly harmless.”
Frank knew it wasn’t true.
He would never forget walking into that trailer. He saw it in his mind every time he closed his eyes. He woke up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat, seeing those eyes and those teeth, screaming soundlessly, gasping for breath.
“He never saw those dogs. How could anyone make such a stupid a decision, knowing what they did?”
My Review:
Frank pays a visit to the home of a local couple who haven't been seen by anyone in days. He gets into their house to find their dead and eaten bodies and their dogs are moving towards him as their next meal. Frank is able to escape and raise the alarm, convinced that the dogs will be put down for safety reasons but is shocked when the animal shelter declare that the dogs are perfectly safe and ready to be adopted to new homes. As the only man to actually see the dogs, Frank knows that they are far from safe and he can't stop worrying about where the dogs will end up, to the frustration of his wife and boss. So when he hears about a dog killing a child on the news he fears the worst and decides to start researching the dogs.
Glenn was the man who studied the dogs and he gives his assurances that the dogs are safe and ready to adopt, but he still thinks that the information about their past should be shared with the shelters they are being sent to. Burton wants the dogs to be sent out of the area and away from his responsibility. He asks Glenn if they are safe and decides that the shelters do not need to know the dog history, as he thinks the dogs will be destroyed instead of rehomed. Fake details are invented for the dogs and they are sent to different parts of the country where each one quickly finds a new home with unsuspecting people.
Some of the people in this book are a little on the annoying side but not on a scale where it puts you off the book or anything. Brenda wants a dog and gets one despite her husband having no interest in one. She is horrified to discover that Jake likes to hunt and kill small animals and decides to raise it with her husband. She hints that something is wrong but refuses to tell him as he asks several times. He then gives up and Brenda sulks because he didn't try harder to get her to tell him! Her kids especially the spoiled Bubba don't seem to know how to behave either! (This is why I don't have kids! They'd drive me mad with their whining!) But Brenda's choices as Jake's behaviour changes are very stupid.
The book stays with the different new owners of the dogs as they start to do things that bother their owners, little signs that all is not right with them. We also follow Frank as he tries to tell the people around him that the dogs are dangerous but his wife just won't listen to him. After the dog attacks start to appear on the news, Frank decides that it is up to him, a PI going undercover at the animal shelter and a guilt ridden man who sold the first dog involved in the new attacks, to get the evidence they need.
This was a nice little thriller and I liked Frank. I felt his frustration when nobody would listen to his warnings, when he was the one who witnessed the aftermath of the attack on their original owners. I liked the story and the way the tension rose as each dog attack drew nearer. You knew that the attacks were coming and the gradual build up to it kept me interested. The one negative about the book was the sudden anti-climax ending but it didn't ruin the actual story.
Read February 2018
3 stars
