Here Doggy, Doggy, Doggy...

The Hand that Feeds You - A. J. Rich

It’s a dog owner’s worst nightmare: the pet that shares your life has attacked someone. In this case, it was worse… far, far, far worse. Morgan Prager came home to her Williamsburg apartment that afternoon only to find her three dogs – a Great Pyrenees and two rescue pit bulls – covered with blood. In her bedroom she found the body of her fiancé Bennett, so savagely mauled that the funeral could only be closed-casket. One of the pitties didn’t survive the arrival of the patrolmen who responded to Morgan’s frantic 9-1-1 call; the other two dogs were bundled off to the local pound’s version of death row. The only reason they stayed alive at all was that they were evidence in a homicide…

King's reincarnation tale needs less stitching and more plot

The Dust of 100 Dogs - A. S. King

I don’t know about you, but I don’t always check the published reviews of a book before buying it or checking it out of the library. Oh, sure, I’ll briefly scan the reviews at “the River,” but I know better than to trust most of those people, anyway. Perhaps had I should have looked more closely at Barnes & Noble’s page for The Dust of 100 Dogs (by A. S. King), though. Instead of glowing reviews from the NYT or even "People," there are blurbs from The Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star and "VOYA" (not the financial company – “Voice of Youth America” magazine). The best the site can come up with is the throwaway line from "Booklist," which calls it “An undeniably original book.” When you come right down to it, though, that description might very well have been followed by “that is unfortunately almost unreadable.”

Love Dogs or Only Like 'Em, "Just Life" Will Disappoint

Just Life - Neil Abramson

Some say that man’s greatest invention is the wheel, some say it is fire. Personally, I’d like to make a case for the domestic canine: I love my dogs and firmly believe that there are no bad dogs (only bad owners). Lawyer-author Neil Abramsom would probably agree, and perhaps that’s why his latest novel, Just Life, so clearly outlines the difference between humans and dogs. I just wish he’d done it better…

Samantha Lewis, DVM, operates on the edge of insolvency: her tiny no-kill shelter in NYC’s Riverside neighborhood has managed to scrape by for years, but time has run out for the Finally Home Animal Shelter. In thirty days, the shelter must place all 24 of its dogs and close the doors -- forever. That’d be bad enough, but suddenly there’s a mysterious killer virus striking local children and rumor has it that the CDC thinks pooches are the carriers. Sam’s charges number almost 100 as her neighbors entrust their animals to her care while fleeing the specter of disease.

Sam and her helpers – a couple of employees, a teenaged volunteer and a defrocked shrink doing court-ordered service – find themselves at the center of a whirlwind, as the mayor and NYPD protect the shelter’s occupants against the governor and the National Guard. There are, of course, the expected villains – soulless politicians, soulless business types, and soulless rednecks – but nevertheless we expect Sam’s band of misfits to prevail (spoiler alert: not one dog dies in this book)…

Abramson’s second novel (after 2012’s Unsaid) is perhaps most memorable for the heart-rending cover photo of a hooded figure, facing a phalanx of uniformed cops, while clutching a precious pup to his chest. Research reveals that Unsaid has a handsome weimaraner on the cover – I see a trend here… Sadly, the cover photograph is the best part of Just Life (the survival of every dog mentioned notwithstanding). Abramson’s writing is from the “kitchen-sink” school, a style in which every known trope that might be the slightest bit related makes an appearance. We have a healthy dollop of religion, far too much gratuitous mysticism, and enough redemption of sins to populate a shelf full of syrupy young-adult fiction books at the local Christian bookstore.

Abramson’s writing is clunky and clumsy, the pacing is uneven, the characters are thin, and an overreliance on tropes of good and evil makes the plot as predictable as a “Wild Kratz” short. I had high hopes for a plot with so interesting a premise, but Just Life did not deliver.

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