When Kate returned from Anchorage after being almost killed by a violent child molester she holed up at her homestead and refused to come out. The aunties (and possibly Ekaterina, Kate's grandmother) decided that something had to be done. So they present her with a half-starved, mistreated puppy, and in saving her, Kate saves herself. Of course, a "tiny" puppy, as she is described several times, seems unlikely to grow up into a 140-pound dog. In my experience, large dogs tend to be large even as puppies. Details, details.
Stabenow's pattern does generally include the deserving victim and this one is exceptionally deserving. The murder victim is himself a known wife killer. He has married and murdered three very young women and been tried and found "not guilty" by reason of jury intimidation. Now he is setting up a fourth. And in case we miss the point, Stabenow has included the murders of the three young wives rather as she did the "hundred years ago" story several books back in The Singing of the Dead.
After that, things get complicated. And for the first time, this one ends without a solid resolution of the crime. We know who and why and how - but there is no nice neat march away to prison.
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