A Breed Apart

A BREED APART by Pierre Davis is an excellent third novel, a riveting thriller centered around biotechnology that has a supremely improbable plot, and you don't even mind. Our protagonist is one Elliot Elliot (a pointless authorial affectation), a security investigator with a large teaching hospital called Pearson. He's a likable enough guy, stuck in a mediocre job through no real fault of his own, and unprepared for the major-league effort that's going to invade his world. A high-level research scientist at the facility has had a test animal, a female Labrador retriever, stolen from him. He won't explain why, but he notes the dog is supremely valuable, not just any old dog. It's Elliot's job to find the canine. But as he searches, he accidentally gets involved in what could be medical records fraud, a community of the homeless where he befriends their leader, an Eastern European professional killer, a criminal mastermind with Alzheimer's, and uh-oh, an old girlfriend whose husband has just gone comatose. It's a heady mix, and we haven't even discussed what's so great about the dog. The best feature of Davis' writing is the way he gradually builds from pure realism to some cockamamie situation, and the reader never notices the smooth shifting, the gradual steps taken as the author ramps up the tension, the ease with which he haves you believing that a hitman could blend into a homeless camp and casually kill people who got in his way, the likelihood of having a dog with quite remarkable intelligence. Davis guides you through these situations, making them plausible. He has a deft ear for dialogue, a brisk and exciting way with the action sequences, and he is a master of clarity. In fact, I would say this book has the best layman's description of how stem-cell research works I've ever read, and a fascinating look at the interval form of carbon monoxide poisoning which is, frankly, amazing. An excellent book for the science- and dog-loving mystery reader. —Mark Rose Buy it at Amazon.

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