Who Let the Dog Out?
Author: David Rosenfelt
Publisher: Minotaur Books
ISBN-10: 1-2500-5533-4
ISBN-13: 978-1-2500-5533-0
This 13th in the series of Andy Carpenter murder mysteries by David Rosenfelt is both more of the same and the taut puzzler that Rosenfelt’s fans have come to expect. Neither they, nor the readers new to this series, will be disappointed.
The previous twelve novels – “Hounded”, “Dog Tags”, “Play Dead”, “Unleashed”, etc. – introduced defense lawyer Andy Carpenter and his regular cast of associates: Laurie Cooper, the ex-policewoman whom he loves; Willie Miller, whom he proved innocent of murder and set up with a dog rescue organization; Sam Willis, his accountant and a master computer hacker; Pete Stanton, his friend and a Paterson, NJ police captain; prosecutor Dylan Campbell, his usual courtroom opponent; and many others. Several novels ago, Andy inherited a large fortune and became able to retire as a lawyer and join Willie Miller as his partner in the Tara Foundation dog rescue service – except that Andy and his dogs keep meeting people that look 100% guilty of murder, whom he is sure are innocent, requiring him to take “one last case” to defend them in court.
In “Who Let the Dog Out?”, Andy and Willie take Cheyenne, a sweet homeless stray about to be euthanized at the dog pound, to care for her until she can be adopted – but someone breaks into the Tara Foundation at night and dognaps her. Why bother when Andy and Willie were hoping for someone to adopt her anyway? The dog has a GPS tracker in her collar, so they follow it and are led to a house where they find both Cheyenne (alive) and the thief (freshly murdered). The police arrest an obvious suspect – his ex-partner, another criminal who had publicly threatened to kill him – but Andy thinks that he has been set up and the real murderer is still loose. So Andy agrees to defend Tommy Infante in what appears to be an increasingly hopeless courtroom drama, while he and his staff search for the real killer – or killers. Andy & company run into official competition from the FBI and another federal agency (why are they involved?); the bodies pile up; and the reader is clued early that if Andy doesn’t solve the mystery quickly, hundreds if not thousands of innocent Americans will die.
“Who Let the Dog Out?” ($25.99, Kindle $12.99) is, as usual, mostly narrated by Andy in short chapters in his sardonic manner, with occasional chapters by the omniscient narrator to tell the reader what’s going on that Andy doesn’t know about. Andy’s love for professional baseball, and his domestic situation with a new wife and adopted 9-year-old son, pad out the 324-page novel.
