"The Good Boy," Theresa Schwegel's Latest Crime Novel Theresa Schwegel is an Edgar-winning crime writer whose Chicago police stories are more nuanced and impassioned than most books of their genre. None of that has brought her much attention, and neither will the nondescript title of her fifth novel, "The Good Boy" - until readers figure out what it means. The story is well-woven enough to contain three contenders for "Good Boy" honors. The first is Officer Pete Murphy, a decent cop with a troubling back story. The fortunes of Pete's wife, son and daughter were irrevocably changed when he was assigned to guard an attractive female judge named Katherine Crawford. She did not set high enough bail on a drug dealer, Juan Moreno, to keep him from getting out of jail and killing two people. The judge began getting death threats, and Pete was assigned to protect her. He wound up doing it in ways that made tabloid headlines and made Kitty Crawford persona non grata to Sarah, Pete's wife. Post-scandal, Pete was demoted to the K9 unit. And his family, under threat from angry gangsta types, was forced to move to grim temporary quarters that turned out not to be temporary. As "The Good Boy" begins, Pete and the other Murphys are still grappling with that situation. The Murphys" 11-year-old son, Joel, is a good boy even when he gets into trouble. He has a keen eye for detail, and there may be a touch of Asperger's syndrome to the way he prefers facts to people. Some of the people Joel knows justify that reaction. Early in the story, a bully tortures and kills Joel's cat in a chilling manner that foreshadows the rest of the story. But Joel is loyal enough to his teenage sister, McKenna, to pick up that she's getting into trouble - and with the cat killer, no less. So he takes Pete's police dog and tracks McKenna to a party. There, the same crew of thugs who went after Judge Crawford appears. Very bad things happen. Joel does not come home afterward. This brings us to the real "Good Boy" in Ms. Schwegel's scheme of things: Butch, the German shepherd-Belgian Malinois mix who is Pete's official partner and also a beloved Murphy pet. Butchie, as Joel calls him, is a highly trained specialist in drug sniffing, and his presence at the teenagers" wild party causes pandemonium. When Joel has to flee, he brings Butchie along as his faithful companion. For all the dog books currently in vogue, it's hard to beat this one for canine verisimilitude or talent. Butchie is a fully credible character, and he's arguably a lot more human than some of the book's other players. He and Joel make a great team, since they both operate on the same kind of cues about their surroundings. They embark on an odyssey through Chicago, and Ms. Schwegel makes it a busy, suspenseful journey. And not a silent one: Joel likes to talk to Butchie. This smart dog seems to grasp a lot of what Joel is saying. As Joel and Butchie travel - and Pete tries frantically to find them - they share the same needs for food, water, safety and shelter. Joel's resourcefulness in providing all of these things is warmly rendered, as are Butchie's best efforts to make himself helpful. Since they have only $4 on which to survive indefinitely, Joel makes very careful choices about finding food. One of his few coups is landing stale, discounted Kaiser rolls. But Joel wakes up after a two-hour nap to find Butchie acting guiltily - dog behavior that Ms. Schwegel captures perfectly. Joel asks what happened. Joel's backpack has been raided, and the last roll is nowhere to be found. "Butchie could wag his tail all day," Ms. Schwegel writes, voicing Joel's thoughts, "but that's no answer." After this transgression prompts the rare cry of "Bad dog" in "The Good Boy," Butchie is told that it's his turn to find provisions. The dog just curls up, "tail over his nose, and lets his eyes get heavy. Doesn't inspire much confidence in his hunting skills. On a parallel track that works equally well, Pete's own hunting skills are being put to the test. He's already out of favor with his superiors; now he has two children who have gotten into trouble. He needs to find out who was at that party, how and why gunshots were fired, and how badly behaved McKenna was that night. And that's not the worst of it. Pete arrived at the party scene and got tough on the hoods he thought were drug dealers. One of them had a camera - and one was the brother of one of Juan Moreno's victims. It looks like police malfeasance, and Pete is a Page 1 villain to the tabloids again. Ms. Schwegel does not milk this material for unexpected twists and turns. This is not a Harlan Coben book, in which a kindly adult tries to save at-risk children and a new crisis arrives at the end of every chapter. Ms. Schwegel's pace is slower and her path more meandering, as befits a story of lost characters trying to find their way back to the peace they once knew. "The Good Boy" is not sentimental (beyond the occasional "I love you, puppy"), but it puts a high value on rekindling parent-child love and keeping bad guys out of good people's lives. Special kudos to "Popcorn Feet," as Joel calls Butchie, and Joel even knows the name of the bacteria that give dogs" feet their aroma. The dog elevates a fairly conventional detective story into something much more lovable. Many books end with thanks to people who inspired the author, but this one also gives a shout-out to Brix, a real four-legged member of the Chicago Police Department's K9 unit. Brix has a Facebook page. He's got big soulful eyes and a lot of fans. That will not surprise Ms. Schwegel's readers.