Citizen K-9 (ARC Review) by David Rosenfelt

Minotaur Books has been amazing to me recently, and I thank them for the advanced copy of Citizen K-9 by David Rosenfelt!  This is a spin-off from his ANDY CARPENTER series which explains a few of the apparent character cameos and references made.  Since I haven’t read any of those books (or the first two in THE K TEAM series) I will treat this as a standalone!

K-9 cops, suspense, cold cases, let’s go!

Bookish Quick Facts:

• Title: Citizen K-9
• Series: The K Team – #3
• Author: David Rosenfelt
• Publisher & Release: Minotaur Books, 03/15/22
• Length: 265 pages
• Rate & Recommend: ⭐⭐⭐⚡ for fans of quick reading, lighter & more humorous PI / procedural type books

Here is the synopsis (from GoodReads):

In Citizen K-9, bestselling author David Rosenfelt masterfully blends mystery with dogs and humor to create an investigative team that readers will be rooting for book after book.

The Paterson Police Department has created a cold case division, and they want to hire the private investigators known as the K Team to look into the crimes. After all, Corey Douglas and his K-9 partner, German shepherd Simon Garfunkel, recently retired from the force. Plus, another K Team member, Laurie Collins, used to be a cop as well.

Their first cold case hits home for the K Team. A decade ago, at Laurie’s tenth high school reunion, two of their friends simply… vanished. At the time Laurie had just left the force, and Corey was in a different department, so they had no choice but to watch from the sidelines. With no leads, the case went cold.

As the team starts to delve deeper into the events leading up to that night—reopening old wounds along the way—the pieces start to come together. But someone wants to stop them from uncovering the truth behind the disappearance, by any means necessary.

Overall, I liked this one! It was a very quick read with lots of action and humor to keep it interesting.  I thought it was cool to see the (retired) police dog in action even though I definitely wanted more page time for Simon.

I’ll go back and read the first two novels to see what other exploits he has had – it’s so easy to root for a K-9.

I liked the characters too.  Corey is a little cut and dry at times but it was not a bad first person POV at all.  Marcus was hilarious with his little quirk, and I liked Andy’s cameos.  Laurie didn’t get a ton of page time and I would have liked to see a little more from her too, even if Corey and Simon were the main duo.

The case itself was interesting too.  I like cold cases.

I had a few minor issues like how the author would interrupt action scenes for commentary and side jokes. Especially in the first person POV where we are seeing a dangerous scene from someone’s eyes, just let the scene finish then talk about it. I wouldn’t expect a retired cop in real time to pause and joke about their word choice in the middle of disarming some dangerous men.  Also some of the analysis got repetitive when they weren’t coming up with any new information.

I expected action from both dogs on the cover although now I know that the golden retriever was the main Canine character from the ANDY CARPENTER series and probably already had her time in the spotlight.

This one 100% works as a standalone.  I would probably recommend starting the series from the beginning, just to have more time with The K Team, but there’s no reason not to read it by itself either!

Free Copy received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review, all opinions are my own!