I apparently borrowed this book from Amazon Kindle Unlimited over a year ago. That fact does not reflect the quality of the book. Sometimes I just go on book-borrowing rampages
Aaaaanyway…
This is book one of the Gideon and Sirius series. Gideon is the man (a cop), and Sirius is the dog (also a cop). When I was first looking to read this book, I asked a question on Goodreads to make sure Sirius didn’t die. I figured that since it was the Gideon and Sirius series, he’d be ok, but I wasn’t taking any chances! It really helped me while reading the book to know that Sirius was going to make it. Animal peril pressure does not make for fun reading to me.
So, Gideon turns out (pretty quickly) to be the titular (always wanted to use that word!) Burning Man. Sirius and he went to a break-in call that could’ve been a murderer at the beginning of the book, and the house was surrounded by fire. G&S saw the bad guy setting nuisance fires in the woods behind the house and followed him. They basically got caught in the fire chasing the bad guy and got shot. Gideon basically caught the bad guy and made him help carry Sirius out of the blaze. All three (2 dudes, 1 dog) got burned. Gideon and Sirius got some time off to recover, and the bad guy went to jail.
There’s also a current murder that G&S are investigating, and Gideon makes a new friend. I like these characters, and I’ll be reading the next few books in the story.