Book ~ "Dog Tags" (2011) David Rosenfelt

From Goodreads ~ For six years Noah Galloway has lived with a horrible secret and the fear that his rebuilt life could be shattered at any moment. Now his dread has become a certainty and he has been arrested for the arson murder of twenty-six people.

What he needs now is defense lawyer Andy Carpenter, who most definitely is not in the market for a new client. So Noah plays his hole card: a shared love for Andy’s golden retriever, Tara, and the knowledge of what her life was like before Andy rescued her. Because Andy wasn’t her first owner - Noah rescued Tara first, and when he wasn’t able to care for her any longer, he did everything in his power to make sure that she was placed in the right home: Andy’s.

With that knowledge, Andy has little choice but to take Noah on, and he soon learns that the long-ago event that may destroy Noah’s life is only the beginning of an ongoing conspiracy that grows more deadly by the day. 

Noah has been hiding a horrible secret and is relieved on the day he is arrested ... six years ago when he was a drug addict, he burned down a house, killing 26 people.  He is sad what it will do to his wife and son but he is prepared to go to prison as a consequence of his crime.

Andy is a wealthy lawyer who would rather work in the dog rescue that he and Willie have established.  He has no desire to take on the case of an admittedly guilty man ... until he finds out that Tara, his dog he had rescued years ago, was originally Noah's.  Noah had found Tara (then Hannah) hurt by the side of the road and had her fixed.  He could barely take care of himself at the time so he put her up for adoption hoping she'd have a better life.  As Andy starts to investigate, he starts to believe in Noah's innocence even when Noah doesn't.

This is the ninth book I've read by this author and I thought it was okay.  I liked the writing style as it was funny, sarcastic and amusing.  It was written in first person perspective in Andy's voice but at times it was also written in third person perspective.  It is the ninth in the Andy Carpenter series (and the ninth I've read) and it works as a stand alone (so you don't need to have read the ones before it to know what is going on).

I like Andy.  He loves his dog, Tara, and thinks she's the most wonderful dog in the whole wide world.  Laurie, Andy's love interest, is living with him and working as his investigator.  Hike is Andy's associate and is the most depressed and downer person ever.  Sam, his accountant who is also a computer hacker, helped with the case and recruits an interesting team to help out.  In addition, he is looking forward to getting more physically involved in the case since he now has a gun.  Marcus, an investigator with persuasive reasoning skills, rounds out the team.

There were quite of few other characters and at times I had a bit of a hard time keeping track who they were.  I didn't find the "why" everything was happening overly interesting.