Hired to help the Paterson Police Department close cold cases, the K Team and their human companions dive into a mysterious disappearance from a high school reunion. Seven years ago, car salesman Chris Vogel led dental hygienist Kim Baskin out from the celebration of the 15th anniversary of their graduation from Paterson Eastside High and off to a rest stop on the Garden State Parkway, where the police found his abandoned car the next day but no further trace of the two classmates. Impressed by their earlier successes, Capt. Pete Stanton wants retired officers Corey Douglas and Laurie Collins, together with their bone-crunching investigator, Marcus Clark, to reopen the case. Following information that Vogel, addicted to both drugs and gambling, had double-crossed Espinosa, the one-named dealer he worked for, the team quickly narrows their list of suspects to one. The question isn't whodunit but why--especially why whoever was responsible for the double disappearance left a single playing card, the king of clubs, behind in Vogel's car. Deciding that it's less important to convict Espinosa in this particular case than to get the goods on him for one of his unrelated criminal enterprises, Corey, who thrives on stirring up trouble, provokes Espinosa to set freelance killer Z, née Leonard Zamora, against the investigators in the hope of gathering new evidence, or at least providing the canine members of the team with opportunities to rescue their considerably more fragile human colleagues. In the end, the normally reliable Rosenfelt provides an explanation for the apparently random cross-country crime wave linked to other playing cards that's so lame readers will have to decide whether to feel insulted or amused. A forgettable mystery, lame wisecracks, and all too little work for those lovable canines. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Former police officer Corey Douglas, the narrator of Edgar finalist Rosenfelt's winning third K Team novel (after 2021's Animal Instinct), tackles a cold case involving two of his high school classmates who disappeared seven years earlier during their 15th reunion. One of the classmates, Chris Vogel, had ties to drugs and organized crime, while the other, Kim Baskin, seemed to barely know Vogel, though witnesses saw them leave the reunion together. Their car was found abandoned a few miles from the event with the only clue being a playing card left in the glove compartment. Corey and his fellow team members soon discover a rash of murders around the country where playing cards were also left behind, though nothing else seems to link the crimes or the disappearance. The no-nonsense Corey has a dry sense of humor, and the interplay between him and his colleagues complements a twisty plot whose threads tie together in an exciting finale. Corey's perspective on Andy Carpenter, who plays a minor role, will please fans of the author's series featuring that attorney sleuth. Rosenfelt consistently entertains. Agent: Robin Rue, Writers House. (Mar.)

Two young people, Chris and Kim, walked out of their high-school reunion late in the evening and were never seen again. The cops dug and dug but found only a playing card on the front seat of Chris' car. The two weren't lovers, and there was nothing murky in their backgrounds. This is the tantalizing opening, all puzzlement and mystery, of the third entry in Rosenfelt's Corey Douglas series, starring a retired cop who appears on the fringes of the author's Andy Carpenter series. The title is an awkward play on Welles' Citizen Kane, and here it's misleading; the no-nonsense shepherd Simon Garfunkel, featured prominently in the earlier installments, is barely present until the flashy ending. And there's no sled, no snow globe. The plot is a little misleading, too; after Cory and his colleagues take on the case, half the novel is given over to a tangle with drug gangs. The rousing finale, though, rooted in a mind-bending game of "predictive theory," explains that playing card and delivers the violence we knew was coming.

Hounds, humor, and homicide: sounds like another mystery from the best-selling Rosenfelt. K Team members Corey Douglas and Laurie Collins get help from German shepherd Simon Garfunkel when the Paterson Police Department forms a cold case division and hires them to investigate a case that hits home. Two of Laurie's friends vanished mysteriously at the time of Laurie's tenth high school reunion, and it's time to find out what happened. With a 60,000-copy first printing.