Review: Silent Creed by Alex Kava

A Mysterious Review of Silent Creed by Alex Kava. A Ryder Creed Mystery.

Review summary: This is an exciting, fast-paced mystery, with the series characters experiencing one narrow escape after another. The background about training dogs for search and rescue is fascinating, and provides a good complement to the actual investigation at the site of a deadly mudslide. A terrific read overall and recommended. (Click here for text of full review.)

Our rating:

Silent Creed
Alex Kava
A Ryder Creed Mystery
Putnam (July 2015)

Publisher synopsis: When Ryder Creed responds to a devastating mudslide in North Carolina, he knows that the difference between finding survivors and the dead is time. He and his sturdiest search-and-rescue dog, Bolo, get to work immediately, but the scene is rife with danger: continued rainfall prevents the rescue teams from stabilizing the land; toxic household substances spread by the crushing slide fill the area with hazardous waste; and the detritus and debris are treacherous for both man and dog to navigate. But most perilous are the secrets hidden under the mud and sludge — secrets someone would kill to protect. For this is no ordinary rescue mission. Among the buildings consumed by the landslide was a top-secret government research facility, and Creed has been hired to find what's left of it.

Then rescuers recover the body of a scientist from the facility who was obviously dead before the landslide — killed by a gunshot to the head. The FBI sends Agent Maggie O'Dell to investigate, and she and Creed are soon caught in a web of lies, secrets, and murder that may involve not only the government facility, but decades-old medical experiments that are the subject of current congressional hearings. As more bodies are found under even more unusual circumstances, they come ever closer to exposing the truth — but with unknown forces working against them, Maggie, Creed, and the dogs are running out of time.