Review of "Dead Men Don't Play Fetch: An Andy Carpenter Mystery" by David Rosenfelt

In this 33rd book in the 'Andy Carpenter' series, Andy defends a man accused of murdering a billionaire.

*****

Ever since he inherited a large fortune, New Jersey defense lawyer Andy Carpenter takes very few cases.



Instead, Andy spends time with his wife Laurie; plays video games with his 16-year-old son Ricky; visits his dog rescue operation called the Tara Foundation;



and plays with his three pooches - golden retriever Tara; basset hound Sebastian; and pug Hunter. Andy takes Tara and Hunter for long walks every morning and evening, but lazy Sebastian prefers to do his business in the yard, between naps.





In his spare time, Andy also likes watching sports on TV and hanging out with his friends, newspaper editor Vince Sanders and Homicide Captain Pete Stanton, at Charlie's Sports Bar. Since Andy is a millionaire, he always pays the bill - and sometimes gets useful information in return.



Despite his reluctance to work, Andy feels compelled to take a new case when he gets a call from his friend Lou Campanelli, who runs a drug and alcohol rehab program called 'A Day at a Time'. Lou asks Andy to represent a recovering alcoholic called Jason Maddox, who has a tragic story.



Jason saw his son killed by a shark, after which he became a homeless alcoholic. Lou helped Jason get clean, and Jason - a physicist and tech expert - now lives at the rehab center with his dog Hope, and helps out with the clients.



Jason Maddox has been accused of killing a billionaire inventor named Paul Vincent, who was stabbed in an alley behind 'A Day at a Time'. Lou insists Jason is innocent, and Andy - who's a sucker for dogs like Hope - takes the case.



Andy decides the best way to exonerate Jason is the SODDI (Some Other Dude Did It) defense, so Andy assembles his associates. This includes 'The K Team' detective agency, whose investigators are: Andy's wife Laurie Collins - a former police officer;



Corey Douglas - a retired cop; Simon Garfunkel - a K-9 German shepherd who worked with Corey at the Paterson Police Department;



and Marcus Clark - the toughest, scariest guy on the planet.



In addition to The K Team, Andy calls in his accountant Sam Willis - who can hack into any computer anywhere;



his assistant attorney Eddie Dowd - who's especially good with paperwork and motions;



and his secretary Edna - who draws a paycheck but doesn't do any work; this time, Edna claims to be getting a dental implant, which prevents her coming to the office.



Andy and his squad turn up an array of alternative suspects including Vincent's former business partner, who lost money when Paul broke up the partnership; a drug dealer Vincent put in prison; a mob boss; a driver who had a fender bender with Vincent; Vincent's former stepson; people in Vincent's will; and more.



As always in these books, Andy ribs the prosecuting attorney. This time the prosecutor is Dylan Campbell, whom Andy has beat three times. Andy tells Dylan, "This is your chance to become the Buffalo Bills of prosecutors", referring to the fact the Bills are famous for having lost four Super Bowls in a row.



The Andy Carpenter novels are always humorous, with Andy making sarcastic quips and jokes throughout. There are also courtroom scenes, and Andy usually scores points off prosecution witnesses. Still, there's not a 'Perry Mason' moment when someone confesses, so Andy has to sweat it out during jury deliberation. When Andy happily exposes the real killer, we find out about the modus operandi and the twisty motive, which is trademark David Rosenfelt.



I enjoy these books, but the formula is getting a little old. Still, I'd recommend the mystery to Andy Carpenter fans.

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Grover Gardner, who does a fine job.

Thanks to Netgalley, David Rosenfelt, and Macmillan Audio for an ARC of the book.

Rating: 3 stars 

Review of "The Keeper: Cal Hooper #3" by Tana French

  

This is the final book in the 'Cal Hooper' trilogy. The book works fine as a standalone, but the entire series is worth reading.

*****

Fiftyish Cal Hooper was a Chicago police officer who became disillusioned with his job and relocated to the Irish town of Ardnakelty.



After three and a half-years Cal is an accepted member of the community, where he owns a house, grows vegetables, supports himself as a carpenter/furniture maker, and is part of an 'old boys club' at Seán Óg's pub. The group is comprised of Cal and several farmers, including Cal's rascally old neighbor Mart Lavin - who's always scheming about one thing or another.



Cal is nominally engaged to a widow named Lena Dunne (though there are no actual wedding plans).....



.....and Cal and Lena 'look after' 16-year-old Theresa (Trey) Reddy, who was a troubled, shoplifting, 13-year-old loner when Cal first met her. Trey is now in high school, has friends, is on a football (soccer) team, and assists Cal with woodwork - which Trey plans to make a vocation.



Ardnakelty folks are an insular lot who solve their own problems and avoid interaction with the Garda, whose police station is only intermittently open in any case. So when 21-year-old Rachel Holohan goes missing.....



.....and Cal finds Rachel's body in the river, the Garda essentially let the townsfolk deal with the tragedy themselves.



Most Ardnakelty citizens choose to believe Rachel's death was a tragic accident, or perhaps a suicide. Rachel had been going with Eugene Moynihan, scion of the wealthy Moynihan family, for five years, and there was chatter about possible romantic woes.



Conversely, Cal's ward Trey - who knows the dark side of Ardnakelty - suspects Rachel was murdered. To satisfy Trey, Cal and Lena quietly look into Rachel's death. This infuriates Eugene's father, Tommy Moynihan, who runs the region's processing plant, and is considered the 'boss man' of Ardnakelty.



Tommy expects everyone to dance to his tune, and people usually do because Tommy has ways of dealing with folks who defy or annoy him. The town's gossip, Mrs. Duggan, acknowledges this when she says to Lena, "How many people would you guess have called in to ask me about Rachel Holohan?....Not a one. You'd think there'd be a queue at my door, wouldn'tja? You'd think this room would be knee-deep in jars of jam and boxes of chocolates. Not a one. No one's asking."



When Cal and Lena won't 'smooth over' Rachel's death, Tommy resorts to his usual coercion and revenge, including spreading malicious rumors; using his police connections; making threats; and more. All this is especially hard on Lena, when people start whispering about her and Rachel.



More trouble follows when townsfolk hear Tommy has a secret agenda for Ardnakelty - plans that will harm farmers but make the Moynihans even richer. The revelations split the townsfolk into two factions, people who insist Tommy can do no wrong, and people who think Tommy's a son-of-a-you know what. This leads to mayhem and murder.



An espionage operation by Trey and her friends helps unearth the truth about things in Ardnakelty, but no matter what, change is coming.



Referring to the historic stone walls in the town, and the colorful fields, Mart Lavin says, "In ten or twenty or thirty years, that'll be gone....Mosta the hedgerows'll haveta go as well - some a them are here since the stone age...but sure, you can't let sentiment get in the way of business."



Cal prepares most of the meals for himself, Lena, and Trey, having taken up cooking out of the belief that Trey needed to eat something other than hamburgers and grilled cheese. So Cal prepares a soufflé for one meal, and chicken casserole for another.





Tana French creates wonderful characters, like the grocer Noreen, whose store is gossip central;



the shy bachelor Bobby, who's obsessed with UFOs and finally has a girlfriend;



and the teenage couple Aidan and Ciara, whose friends negotiate their first date.



I was also drawn in by the town's ambiance, with its cloistered atmosphere and picturesque landscape of mountains, ravines, forests, bogs, farms, domestic animals, etc. I could picture all this and feel for the cowed townsfolk who’re nervous of saying a word wrong.



To top things off, Cal, Trey, Lena and others have pet dogs and working dogs that add a touch of fun to the novel.



This is a fine series that immerses the reader in (what feels like) a real Irish town. Highly recommended.

Thanks to Netgalley, Tana French, and Vking for an ARC of the book.

Rating: 4 stars

Review of "Eyes Of The Void: The Final Architecture (Book Two)" by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  

This is the second book in 'The Final Architecture' trilogy.

Background: The story takes place in the distant future, when humans have colonized space and encountered many kinds of intergalactic species. The most frightening of these entities are called Architects, each one as large as a moon, with crystalline spikes radiating from its surface.



An Architect will suddenly appear over an inhabited world, then quickly reshape it into a gigantic sculpture, killing everything that lives there....as if the Architect doesn't 'see' the inhabitants.



An Architect destroyed Earth, and the remaining shards of humanity reside elsewhere in the universe. Over time, humans became divided into two rival groups: The Colonies - composed of biologically natural men and women (Colonists) that live on habitable planets and moons;



and The Parthenon - comprised of parthenogenetically grown women (Partheni) who reside on spacecraft fitted to their needs.



Other species in the universe include artificial intelligence creatures called hivers (made of insects), as well as beings that resemble giant versions of slugs, crabs, clams, fungi, locusts, aquatic blobs, and more.







During the Architect onslaught, a human girl called Xavienne Torino was able to mentally connect with an Architect and persuade it to cease its attack and go away. Xavienne was termed an "Intermediary' (Int) and a program was developed to tinker with people's brains to make more Ints.



Almost no one survived the procedure. However, a spaceship navigator called Idris Telemmier was transformed into an Int.



In addition to communicating with Architects, Idris is able to steer spacecraft through a region of the universe called unspace, where distances of lightyears can be traversed in a few days. Idris is the navigator on a salvage vessel called the Vulture God, whose crew consists of a handful of humans and aliens.



Since Ints are VERY valuable commodities, the Colonists, Partheni, and other groups are constantly trying to conscript or kidnap Idris for their own purposes, one of which is making more Ints.

*****

As 'Eyes Of The Void' opens, the Architects, who've been gone for fifty years, return and start destroying worlds again. By now, it's known that planets containing remains left behind by mysterious 'Originators' are immune from destruction. For this reason, communities are built on Originator ruins, which are supposedly safe from destruction by Architects.



Idris Telemmier is currently working on a Partheni garden ship called Ceres, a huge spaceship that produces food and contains thousands of individuals. Some of Idris's old crewmates are with him on the Ceres, and others remain on the Vulture God, doing salvage work.



Idris's job is to take groups of Partheni into unspace, to identify potential Ints and train them



The universe is in constant turmoil with various groups competing for power, money, and Ints. This leads to hijackings, kidnappings, battles, and deaths, all of which is exacerbated by the deadly Architects.

In this fraught atmosphere, a Colonial intelligence agent called Havaer Mundy uncovers a nefarious plot.



While Colonials, Partheni, and other groups fight each other - and the Architects cause chaos - a few rich human conspirators plan to build and launch arkships, containing people they've selected, to roam the universe and preserve humanity. The schemers even foment war among other groups, to distract attention from their activities.



The novel's action accelerates when an Architect shows up near Arc Pallator, a planet with vast Originator ruins. A community of Colonials live among the relics, confident the Architects won't destroy their world. How wrong they are!! An Architect arrives and sends down mobile crystal shards to excavate the ruins, and prepare for the planet's destruction.



To rescue Arc Pallator's residents, Colonials, Partheni, the Vulture God, Idris, and other beings rush to the planet. In the chaos, Idris is kidnapped by a human-alien symbiont named Emmaneth.



Emmaneth takes Idris to a planet called Criccieth's Hell, where scientists found an Originator machine. The researchers are using the high-tech device, with a cot for a passenger, to enter and study unspace, where they've found an Architect nursery.....and they need Idris's help.



At the same time, Idris's crewmates and friends, along with Havaer Mundi, set out to get Idris back. Havaer is also working to expose the human conspirators secretly building arkships.





This is the crux of the plot, but the story is very complicated, with a large array of characters, and a great deal of action and adventure. [I frequently had to consult Tchaikovky's endnotes, where he provides a timeline, glossary, and lists of characters, worlds, species, and ships.]

By the end of the novel, a coalition of species are working in a powerful Originator installation, to find a way to stop the Architects. Does this mean genocide of the spiky aliens? Book three should reveal all.



This is a good story, but it requires careful attention. I'd advise reading the trilogy straight through, to keep on top of everything that's happening. Recommended to sci-fi fans.

Rating: 4 stars