Sunday 3 January 2016

Book ~ "Unleashed" (2013) David Rosenfelt

From Goodreads ~ Andy Carpenter's accountant, Sam Willis, is stunned to receive a phone call out of the blue from Barry Price, a high school friend he hasn't spoken to in years, pleading for help with something too frightening to discuss on the phone.

Barry needs Sam's financial acumen and lawyer Andy Carpenter's legal expertise and he needs them immediately. But when Sam almost runs over an injured dog lying in the road on the way to Barry's house, he can't drive off without waiting for help to arrive. By the time Sam makes it, Barry's already taken off on a private airplane headed who-knows-where. Assuming their help is no longer needed, Sam and Andy turn their full attention to helping the dog Sam found recover from his injuries.

Then they learn that Barry's plane has crashed and they come to the terrifying realization that Sam was also supposed to have been killed on that plane.

Barry was in far more serious trouble than either of them knew, and for Sam and Andy, the trouble is only beginning.

Andy is a lawyer who has decided that because he is wealthy, he doesn't want to work anymore and is going to spend more time at the dog rescue that he and Willy started ... so no more clients.  When his friend and accountant, Sam, tells Andy that Barry, an old friend, needs a criminal lawyer, Andy declines.  Barry is killed that night in a plane crash and had Sam not hit a dog on his way to see Barry, he would have also been on that plane.  When it is determined that Barry had been poisoned and that's how he lost control of his plan, Barry's wife, Denise, who was Sam's girlfriend in high school, is arrested for his murder, Sam asks Andy to represent her and Andy agrees.  As the trial begins, things get a lot more complicated and Andy is forced to involve the FBI.

In the meantime, Sam adopts the dog he had hit and names him Crash.  Crash is an older Golden Retriever who is friendly but is the laziest dog ever.

This is the eleventh book I've read by this author and I thought it was okay.  It involved terrorism, which is not a storyline I'm into and I found it a bit convoluted.  I liked the writing style as it was funny, sarcastic and amusing.  It was written in first person perspective in Andy's voice but at times it was also written in third person perspective.  It is the eleventh in the Andy Carpenter series (and the eleventh I've read) and it works as a stand alone (so you don't need to have read the ones before it to know what is going on).

I like Andy.  He loves his dog, Tara, and thinks she's the most wonderful dog in the whole wide world.  Laurie, Andy's love interest, is living with him and working as his investigator.  Hike is Andy's associate and is the most depressed and downer person ever.  Marcus, an investigator with persuasive reasoning skills, rounds out the team and continues to provide protection when it's most needed (which is often).  Sam teaches computer skills to an elderly group and he has passed on his computer hacking skills to them and they help Andy.  I found in this book there were a lot characters (terrorists in training, FBI agents, etc.) and I had a hard time keeping track of them.

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