No Ordinary Dog: My Partner from the SEAL Teams to the Bin Laden Raid by Will Chesney

From the publisher: No Ordinary Dog is the powerful true story of a SEAL Team Operator and military dog handler, and the dog that saved his life.
Two dozen Navy SEALs descended on Osama bin Laden’s compound in May 2011. After the mission, only one name was made public: Cairo, a Belgian Malinois and military working dog. This is Cairo's story, and that of his handler, Will Chesney, a SEAL Team Operator whose life would be irrevocably tied to Cairo's.

No Ordinary Dog details the relationship between SEAL Team Operator Will Chesney and a Belgian Malinois Military Working Dog (MWD) named Cairo. The first 100 pages or so touch briefly on Will’s childhood and adolescence, and then focus on his enrollment in the US Navy, where he is determined to become a SEAL. The grueling details of preparation, training, and the infamous Hell Week are covered in painful detail. As his career progresses, Will is introduced to MWDs and begins the process of training to become a dog handler. 

After being partnered with Cairo, the focus shifts to training the handler (the dog already has thousands of dollars and years of experience by this point) and making sure both are prepared to ship out to Afghanistan. The book details the roles and duties that both handler and dog play, from bomb detection to taking down enemy combatants. It’s here and up through the latter bin Laden raid that the book tends to be a little repetitious, as over and over it describes the sheer force and power of MWDs. This was already touched upon in the fascinating section describing the training and procurement of said dogs, and it starts to wear a little, especially if read in one sitting (if, for instance, your flight is delayed….). New York Times bestselling author Joe Layden is listed on the cover as well as Will, and this is really the only part of the book that stands out as a negative. A separate section of photos would be nice as well; one can hope that it may make an appearance in the final edition. 

After the raid, Cairo returns to a less active military role, and Will is injured by a grenade blast. While his visible wounds heal, brain injuries and PTSD begin to make their devastating effects known, and Cairo transitions to a position of healer.
Overall, I found this to be a good book on a subject that the general public has had little chance to know about. As one might infer from the last line of the back cover (‘-and then up to Will to be there when Cairo needed him the most.’), this is a tear jerker, so beware if you’re easily affected and reading in public.

SPOILER ALERT... 

...Cairo does pass away at the end of the book. It’s a rough last twenty pages, but obviously written with love and dedication.

I read an advance reader copy of No Ordinary Dog. It will be published in April 2020 and will be available at the Galesburg Public Library.

Publisher description: "When Gabriel Ash's wife and kids were kidnapped four years ago by Somali pirates, his life spiraled out of control. He left his job working for the British government and moved to a small town where he descended into near madness. But with the help of his dog, Patience, and his friendship with young police officer Hazel Best, his focus returned. So when he discovers that his wife is still alive, Ash is once again filled with hope and fear. Hope that he has another chance to find her and their two young sons; fear that, in trying, he may bring about their deaths."

One thing I like about Jo Bannister is that she excels at drawing emotional relationships between members of the opposite sex who are not romantic pairs. This is brilliantly displayed in Desperate Measures, the third book in the Gabriel Ash/Hazel Best series.

Desperate Measures is full of plot twists, okay, not all entirely plausible, but the story kept me guessing and I thoroughly enjoyed it. At one point I actually had to skip ahead because something happened that I both believed and could not believe.

I love the character of Gabriel Ash, the depiction of his struggle to cope with his PTSD, and his ability to hear his white lurcher Patience speak. (Patience is a great character too.) I also like that Gabriel is clever and intelligent but not a James Bond type. ("He had never been licensed to kill. He'd never been licensed to shout loudly or carry a pointed stick. He was a desk jockey - always had been, always would have been until he took his pension and the CBE that went with it. ... He was the kind of man who apologized to people who bumped into him in shop doorways." (p. 216))

If you like English police procedurals with lots of character development, I recommend all of Jo Bannister's series. If you also  are drawn to depictions of characters with PTSD, so much the better as far as the Gabriel Ash/Hazel Best series goes. Can't wait for the next book in the series!

The Galesburg Public Library has many books by Jo Bannister in multiple formats. The first book in the Gabriel Ash/Hazel Best series is Deadly Virtues.