In David Rosenfelt's Rescued (#770), Andy Carpenter is enjoying life; no legal cases in sight, time to spend with his wife Laurie, and their son, Ricky and their two dogs, and to check in on the Tara Foundation, named for his beloved golden retriever. The only fly in the ointment is that his friends keep running up his tab at Charlies, even when Andy isn't there downing burgers and beer with them.
That is, until he gets a panicked phone call from the local Humane Society Director asking him to come to a rest stop off the New Jersey Turnpike. It's a crime scene, with the driver of an eighteen wheeler shot to death in the back of the truck, but that's not why Ralph called Andy. The truck's cargo is a load of rescue dogs. After a long day of getting the dogs settled in at the Tara Foundation, Andy returns home to a double whammy. Waiting for him at the house is Laurie's ex-boyfriend, Dave Kramer and he wants Andy to represent him for killing the truck driver at the rest stop in self-defense. Andy is, to put it mildly, not thrilled, but it's important to Laurie, so...
As usual in an Andy Carpenter book, things are not as simple as they appear on the surface, and Andy is not convinced that Kramer's case is winnable, even if he is being represented by the top defense lawyer available. In pursuit of even the tiniest shred of evidence to plant reasonable doubt in the jury's minds, Andy begins to get a glimmer that something big is behind an apparently open-and-shut case of revenge.
Always an enjoyable read with enough twists to keep the reader turning pages until the very end, I love the Andy Carpenter mysteries because of the snarky dialog and the unusual cast of characters. After meeting David Rosenfelt at this year's BookMania!, it's very easy to see that Andy and David share many characteristics. If you are new to the series, you can enjoy each book on its own, but they are even better when read in sequence.
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