One Dog Night

One Dog Night (#103) by David Rosenfelt is the latest outing in his Andy Carpenter mystery series.  It's all Tara's fault in this case.  Andy thinks Tara, his golden retriever, is better than people.  Considering the kind of people that he runs across in his job as a defense attorney when he's forced to work, he may very well be right.  The last thing he wants is to get involved in defending a man accused in the infamous arson murder of twenty-six people in an apartment house fire six years ago - espcially when the client is convinced of his own guilt.  But Galloway's wife comes to see Andy and reveals that her husband is the one responsible for making sure Andy adopted Tara in the first place and begs Andy to defend him.  At the time of the fire, Noah Galloway was a drug addict, and the apartment house is question was the source of his supply.  Now he's a highly respected fighter in the war against drugs, and about to be appointed to an important White House Commision.  How can Andy not defend someone who was capable of making such a hard choice for Tara's benefit all those years ago?

Once Andy and his team begin to dig deeper, he is convinced that Galloway is innocent and that there is something much, much bigger going on, and that he'd better get to the bottom of things before everyone who knows anything about the case is murdered.

In his usual fashion, Mr. Rosenfelt has constructed a plot full of unexpected twists and turns and filled with quirky characters.  Laurie Collins and Marcus Clark play pivotal roles in investigating the circumstances, but it is really Sam, his accountant and computer whiz, who really comes through for Andy, aided by his cadre of senior citizen computer students.  They're up to any challenge.  Just don't ask them to do it after 9:00 p.m! 

With the case hanging in the balance, the outcome will depend on the courtroom action.  A nail biter right down to the last page - the very best kind of mystery!