Author: David Rosenfelt
Series: Andy Carpenter #27
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Format: Kindle ARC
No. of Pages: 272
Date of Publication: July 4, 2023
My Rating: 4 Stars
Lights, camera, action in bestselling author David Rosenfelt’s Flop Dead Gorgeous , as Andy Carpenter goes bicoastal to prove an old friend’s innocence.
Retired lawyer Andy Carpenter remembers every dog that’s come through the Tara Foundation’s doors, but the most well-known alum of the dog rescue organization that Andy founded in Paterson, New Jersey, may be Mamie. Adopted by famous actress Jenny Nichols―Andy’s high school girlfriend―the miniature French poodle is now practically a starlet in her own right.
Andy doesn’t hold it against his friend. In fact, he and his wife, Laurie, have dinner with Jenny while she’s in town filming her next big hit. But after an eventful meal, there’s a plot twist the next morning that none of them see Jenny’s costar is found dead, a knife in his back. It’s not long before Jenny is arrested for the murder and finds herself in need of Andy’s legal services.
While Mamie becomes reacquainted with Tara, Andy’s golden retriever, Andy digs into the lives of the rich and famous.
MY THOUGHTS:
Twenty-seven books in! I read Flop Dead Gorgeous in May, and already have started the book coming out in October, Twas the Bite Before Christmas. That is how much I absolutely love this series by David Rosenfelt.
Lights. Cameras. Action. Why is that? First of all, Andy should stop saying he is retired, because he takes case after case. In this case, he is defending an ex-girlfriend, and she is a movie star and comes with all of the glitz and glamour. Of course she has a dog, a dog she has adopted from Andy's organization, The Tara Foundation.
This Andy Carpenter series ties in with his spinoff series, The K Team, so not only do we have Andy's wife Laurie, there are Sam, a computer whiz; Marcus, his security guard; and ex-cop Corey, the latter two you see a lot of with Laurie in the K Team books. Oh, it was so nice to see Edna in this book. I remember when I was binge reading the series in January how averse Edna was to work, and I simply adore her. Fabulous continuity, but enough of a backstory for first time readers of a book in this series.
As per his regular style, Andy does more than take on his newest client, he also investigates the murder she is being accused of. Considering the victim died in her kitchen makes this no easy feat. With his usual charm, humor and intelligence, Andy is certainly up to the task.
You absolutely have to love Andy's love for dogs, as well as to how Laurie feels about them as well. I hated for this book to end, especially since I had it as an audiobook ARC expertly narrated by the talented Grover Gardner, but I also got the October title as an eARC and am reading it now.
I have no idea how I missed this series at the beginning but I am thrilled to be reading each book as it comes out as David Rosenfelt has written an addictive series.
Many thanks to Minotaur Books and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
I have gotten to this dubious position with absolutely no planning, and at no stage in my life could I have predicted it. But here I am.
My childhood was relentlessly normal. The middle of three brothers, loving parents, a middle-class home in Paterson, New Jersey. We played sports, studied sporadically. laughed around the dinner table, and generally had a good time. By comparison, “Ozzie and Harriet’s” clan seemed bizarre.
I graduated NYU, then decided to go into the movie business. I was stunningly brilliant at a job interview with my uncle, who was President of United Artists, and was immediately hired. It set me off on a climb up the executive ladder, culminating in my becoming President of Marketing for Tri-Star Pictures. The movie landscape is filled with the movies I buried; for every “Rambo”, “The Natural” and “Rocky”, there are countless disasters.
I did manage to find the time to marry and have two children, both of whom are doing very well, and fortunately neither have inherited my eccentricities.
A number of years ago, I left the movie marketing business, to the sustained applause of hundreds of disgruntled producers and directors. I decided to try my hand at writing. I wrote and sold a bunch of feature films, none of which ever came close to being actually filmed, and then a bunch of TV movies, some of which actually made it to the small screen. It’s safe to say that their impact on the American cultural scene has been minimal.
About fourteen years ago, my wife and I started the Tara Foundation, named in honor of the greatest Golden Retriever the world has ever known. We rescued almost 4,000 dogs, many of them Goldens, and found them loving homes. Our own home quickly became a sanctuary for those dogs that we rescued that were too old or sickly to be wanted by others. They surround me as I write this. It’s total lunacy, but it works, and they are a happy, safe group.
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