Customer Reviews

The Little Dog Laughed: A Dave Brandstetter Mystery

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The Little Dog Laughed, the eight Dave Brandstetter mysteries, takes the likeable insurance death claims investigator on a very different mission. While he fairly soon confirms that the death an internationally famous news reporter is murder to the satisfaction of the insurance company; he remains on the case in order to find the real culprits, believing the man the police have arrested for the crime to be innocent. Dave soon finds himself on dangerous ground as he becomes involved with politics and terrorism.

Along with the intricate plot we have Dave's interesting private life to follow too. One very appealing aspect of this is that over the series of these mysteries Dave grows older as in real time parallel with the original publication of the novels, in addition to the advances in technology, we find that Dave is no longer young and agile, and while he maintains his good looks and trim appearance he is beginning to feel the years; but he still has his admirers including, so far, the lithe young black guy who shares his life and bed.

'The Little Dog Laughed' is perhaps the weakest of the several Joseph Hansen books I've read. In it we have Dave Brandstetter, an insurance investigator, out to unravel a murder of one of his clients. He first works through some suspicious characters closely associated with the victim before being hurled into the middle of a mysterious and incomprehensible Latino terrorist organization. None of it made much sense, and the plot seemed rather sloppily constructed. I wish I could say that the characterizations were wonderful and the dialogue sharp but that would be a lie. The best thing about this book is that it is very short in length.

Bottom line: the book seems to be the product of Joseph Hansen on an off day(s). Not recommended.