The Dog Who Saved Me

February 15, 2015

Best-selling author Wilson (A Man of His Own; The Dog Who Danced) successfully offers another story showing how much healing and companionship dogs can offer humans. The novel takes place in bucolic and increasingly gentrified Harmony Farms, just outside of Boston. Cooper Harrison was a Boston K-9 unit policeman until a bomb damaged his hearing and killed his canine partner Argos. Unable to move past his grief and guilt over what happened, Cooper resigns from his job and loses his wife in the process. When an old friend in Harmony Farms asks him to take the animal control officer job back home, Cooper finally gives in even though it will likely mean encountering his alcoholic father and ex-con brother. Navigating the new job, dealing with his family, and battling his post-traumatic stress disorder keep Cooper busy enough, but it's not until he meets Natalie, who owns a horse rehab farm, and finds a wounded, almost feral yellow lab that Cooper realizes he might have another chance at happiness. VERDICT The heartwarming moments of this story are balanced with the darker realities of a small town. That harmony makes the happy ending all the more rewarding and leaves the reader with a narrative of love and redemption that never becomes cloying.--Melissa DeWild, Kent District Lib., Comstock Park, MI

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