Hounded

Andy Carpenter isn’t sure what to think when he gets a mysterious phone call from a good friend, policeman Pete Stanton, asking him to drop everything, drive to an unfamiliar address, and bring his girlfriend, Laurie Collins. He certainly isn’t expecting to show up at a crime scene. But that’s exactly where he arrives—at the house where Pete has just discovered the body of ex-convict Danny Diza. Upstairs are Danny’s now orphaned eight-year-old son and basset hound. And that, Andy discovers, is why he and Laurie were called to the scene—Pete wants them to take care of the boy and the dog so they won’t get thrown into the “system.” This is already asking a lot, but soon Pete needs another big favor from Andy. Pete himself has come under suspicion for Danny’s murder, and he needs defense attorney Andy to represent him…and to find out what really happened in Danny's house that day. David Rosenfelt has done it again. Told with his characteristic humor and wit, Hounded is at once a heartfelt story about family and a page-turning legal thriller. From BooklistAndy Carpenter, the frivolous-but-not-really lawyer who’s fronted a dozen of Rosenfelt’s agreeable novels, is asked to defend a cop accused of murdering a favored informant. The case seems airtight, but Andy and the reader know that’s nonsense. Preparing the defense leads into the befuddling world of cell-phone satellites and GPS devices and then . . . dead end. Suddenly we’re watching a chemist who has developed a pill that will let terminally ill animals die painlessly. But it’s people who are dying. Is it all connected? You bet. Rosenfelt has assembled a huge cast to prove it, and that’s the problem. Willy, Sam, Hike, Marcus, Pete, Laurie, Richard, Sharon, and squads of others move in and out of the narrative, with no reidentification, causing the reader to spend too much time keeping track of the players. When Andy is saved from death by a friend who appears out of nowhere, we shouldn’t be wondering, “Now, who is he?” Still, the solution to the mystery, when it comes, is stunning, and Andy is as charming as always. Not the best in the series, but good enough to keep fans engaged. --Don Crinklaw About the AuthorDavid Rosenfelt, a native of Paterson, New Jersey, is a graduate of NYU. He was the former marketing president for Tri-Star Pictures before becoming the Edgar and Shamus Award-nominated author of five stand-alones and ten previous Andy Carpenter novels, most recently, Leader of the Pack. He and his wife live in Maine with the twenty-five dogs they have rescued. Grover Gardner has recorded over 450 audiobooks and was named one of Audiofile Magazine's Golden Voices. He is a member of the Woolly Mammoth Theater Company, Resident Director at Everyman Theater in Baltimore and has received 5 Helen Hayes Award nominations of his work.