In a recent “Under Analysis” column Mark Levison wrote that he finds lawyers “interesting, entertaining and quite often a bit quirky.” He then describes some of the quirky lawyers around him. Mark has a partner who won’t change a light bulb and who’s married to someone who won’t. He has an associate who leaves home before dawn to get to the office on snowy days. That associate is married to a lawyer who “naps” from 10:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m., but otherwise works every hour of every day.
I thought of writing about the quirky lawyers around me. Space limitations do not permit me to do so. Since I’ve pledged to read all the novels of David Rosenfelt, and to provide teaser blurbs for each as I finish them, let me say that Andy Carpenter, Rosenfelt’s first person narrator, is one quirky lawyer.
Andy, in his own words, is “work-ethically challenged.” His best friends are Laurie Collins, an ex-cop who works for him as an investigator and with whom he is in love, and Tara, his golden retriever. Three nights a week, Andy visits Charlie’s, “the greatest sports bar in the history of the civilized world,” where he joins newspaper editor Vince Sanders and police captain Pete Stanton for beer, burgers and fries. Andy insists that his fries be burned and, since inheriting a fortune in the first novel, he always picks up the check.
“New Tricks” (2010) is Rosenfelt’s seventh Andy novel, though it post-dates two non-Andy novels I’ve not yet read. When I realized the author had begun to produce stand-alones outside the Andy series, I made an executive decision. The first non-Andy (“Don’t Tell a Soul”) was released in 2008. I did not realize this until I was into 2009’s “Play Dead,” which I blurbed last week.
In “New Tricks” Andy’s appointed by the probate court to take temporary possession of Waggy, a Bernese Mountain Dog puppy whose ancestors were best-in-show performers and whose owner has been murdered. A custody dispute is anticipated between the widow and the owner’s only son. Complications set in when the widow is killed in an explosion and the son is charged with murdering his dad and step-mom.
Andy’s affection for dogs is unparalleled. He’ll stop at nothing to ensure Waggy’s safety. This dedication leads him to take on the son’s murder case. Will Waggy be kept safe from nefarious forces that seek to do him harm? Can the son be acquitted, despite Andy’s woefully inadequate trial preparation, ethical lapses and misreading of the Rules of Evidence? Where exactly is the carotid artery*? These and other issues await you.
I’m 40 pages into “Dog Tags,” the last Andy novel in print, which I hope to blurb next week. Another, “One Dog Night,” is due out later this year.
*Rosenfelt admitted that, in the hardcover edition of “New Tricks,” he made his “dumbest mistake ever” when he wrote that a bullet in someone’s thigh had severed the carotid artery. (Apparently, he was able to change that before the paperback edition came out, so depending on which you read ….)
Vic Fleming is a district court judge in Little Rock, Ark., where he also teaches at the William H. Bowen School of Law. Contact him at vicfleming@att.net.