Library Journal
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Dog lover and lawyer Andy Carpenter's latest adventure (following Dog Day Afternoon) begins when a dog his family previously fostered turns up at their house. He returns the dog to its owner, a woman whose college student son has just been arrested for the murder of one of his professors. Andy reluctantly takes up the case of the young man and quickly discovers anomalies. Why was his previous attorney trying to tank the case? Did the professor's online behavior have anything to do with his death? Or perhaps it was his drug use. Andy is still trying to figure out what is going on when people start disappearing. An ominous visit from a Homeland Security agent raises the stakes, and the Russian mob is unsubtly interested in the case as well. It's a race to the finish as the trial is underway while they try to untangle the relationships among the suspects and victim. VERDICT Fans of the series will enjoy Andy Carpenter's latest outing, which includes a complex but fast-moving mystery, plenty of offbeat characters on both sides of the law, and several dogs. As in the earlier books, Rosenfelt doesn't weigh them down with too much backstory, so newcomers can dive right in.—Dan Forrest

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Lawyer Andy Carpenter leaves the comfort of Paterson, New Jersey, to defend a Rutgers student accused of killing his professor. Brian “BJ” Bremer quarreled with his mentor, Prof. Steven Rayburn, over the grade on one of his assignments. That’s no big deal, of course, but Middlesex County prosecutor Timothy Nabers wants a jury to believe it’s the reason BJ beat Rayburn to death in the professor’s home. Apart from the flimsy motive, the evidence is dismayingly strong. The cops found BJ—who claims Rayburn broke protocol by summoning him to an off-campus meeting—standing over his professor’s bloody corpse, and a search of the student’s apartment reveals a hidden stash of cash and Rayburn’s Rolex, which BJ claims somebody planted. Luckily, Murphy, a foster terrier Andy had farmed out to BJ’s mother, finds his way back to Andy’s home just in time for Christmas and moves him, as urged by his tenderhearted wife, Laurie Collins, to wrestle BJ’s defense away from James Howarth, a do-nothing attorney who’s being paid by unnamed sources who want BJ to take a plea deal that will release him from prison in plenty of time to collect Social Security. Despite the evidence against his client, the whole setup stinks to high heaven, and it’s not long before Andy links Rayburn to a trio of online assailants and a serious Russian mobster the prosecution dutifully pooh-poohs. The unmasking of the killer is a soggy climax to a case that’s not exactly loaded with surprises, but the road there is consistently amusing. Yes, yes, dogs and Christmas. But fans will know that no one does low-rent courtroom drama like Rosenfelt. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Rosenfelt continues his long-running Andy Carpenter series with its woofy titles, including Good Dog, Bad Cop (2023). This time around, Andy, a dog-loving, work-hating, nap-taking part-time criminal defense lawyer, is asked to defend the son of a fellow pup fan: a young Rutgers computer science student known as BJ, who's been charged with the murder of a world-famous computer mastermind. The police have a mighty strong case. They came upon him standing over the great man's corpse, covered with blood. The victim's watch and $600 are in BJ's apartment. Andy senses that something is off when he learns that the boy's lawyer told him to take a plea deal: he'll be out of jail when he's 50. To hell with that, says Andy. The firestorm begins; mayhem follows: mobsters, drug dealers, even guest appearances by avatars from the meta world. (They mystify Andy.) Andy's humor is intact: the world would be better if people were golden retrievers. And his reverse snobbery surfaces only twice, when he sneers at "tenured eggheads" and "meek, innocent academics."