Blurb
Sydney Rye and her dog exact justice—the dog doesn’t die, but the bad guys do.
Blue was as tall as a Great Dane but skinnier, with the snout of a collie, the markings of a Siberian husky, the ears and tail of a shepherd, and the body of a wolf with one blue eye and one brown. Crouched in a sitting position, unable to lie down or sit all the way up, he looked at me from between the bars, and I fell in love.
I adopted Blue from the shelter, and everything in my world changed…
When I brought him home, I wanted something in my life that was worth holding on to. I’d just broken up with my boyfriend and picked up a dog-walking gig on the Upper East Side. I was young and lost…normal.
I was still Joy Humbolt.
I’d never even heard the name Sydney Rye.
Never seen a dead body, gotten beat up, or shot at. I didn’t set out to be a hero—couldn’t have imagined becoming a vigilante.
But I don’t regret what I’ve done. The lives I’ve saved…or the ones I’ve taken.
P.S. The dog doesn’t die.
P.P.S. Do not read these books if you have issues with “strong” language, sex out of wedlock, or LGBTQ+ characters. <—-Top 3 things one-star reviews complain about.
My Review
Sydney Rye isn’t in this book much, because, in this book she’s still Joy Humbolt. She’s a bit of a ne’er-do-well, just sacked from her job as a barista – which I totally understand I couldn’t do that job and not just because I can’t stand the smell of coffee. Mostly it’s because I couldn’t deal with the way people treat service staff. It’s just awful.
Then she gets wind of a dog-walking business that’s for sale, and she takes it on. What could be hard about walking dogs? Well, having one of the dogs find the body of a man shot in the face for a start. Then to learn that it’s the body of one of the other dogs she walks doesn’t improve things. The interest in her that the hunky police officer shows is welcome, but the being dragged into a murder enquiry, being the reason that the detective leading that enquiry is suspended, these things aren’t so good. And it’s definitely not good when the troubles come to her door and start shooting.
This book is well written, I enjoyed the style, it was fun and easy to read with enough action and twists to keep me interested. And it’ wasn’t until the very end that you find out how she becomes Sydney Rye, and it makes perfect, heartwarming (if you can say that about a vigilante) sense.
I didn’t read the whole blurb before I read the book, so when I was surprised by what it says when I copied it for this review. Surprised because I’m not convinced either way about giving trigger warnings, though these seems to be a good reason here. And surprised because there’s nothing in the warnings that I think is unusual in crime writing these days. I don’t have issues with strong language, not that there was that much. I don’t have issues about reading of sex out of wedlock, or even the more interesting dominatrix ideas that are threaded into this book. And I certainly don’t have issues with LGBTQ+ characters, so the final warning wouldn’t have made any difference to me anyway. As far as I’m concerned, these things are part of the human condition, why shy away from them? There again, see Joy’s mother, that might explain it.
There are passages in this that are difficult to read, I did cry at one point. But that’s because the characters are crafted well enough for this reader to come to care about them. I don’t think I would have like Joy Humbolt in the real world, but I can certainly warm to Sydney Rye.
I would recommend this book and I will be reading more of the series.
GB Williams Crime Blog 