Sweet...

Funny, sweet, a tad predictable but, how can you not love Finnegan, the in-denial OCD, quirky, snarky, passionate main character and her canine friends? A stray golden retriever in Central Park who brings bags of money and jewels to Finnegan for some food, a gorgeous detective love interest, emotionally stunted best friends of each main character finding each other and a connection that may last forever....what is there not to love in this book?!!

2 people found this helpful

Lots of fun.

I enjoyed Unleashed:Case of the Gold Retriever. Yes, you have to suspend belief for a short while. But it’s all in the name of fun and a bit of light reading. Short note: The audio version narrator calls the book title as Unleashed:Case of the GOLDEN Retriever, both at the beginning and ending of the audio version. Surprised that was left to stand.

1 person found this helpful

just as good as the others

i really love how he makes her neurotic and ocd. it's pretty cute. i hope there is another in the series!

1 person found this helpful

A story in desperate need of an editor

Overall, it’s nice to see the characters again but this is not a very well put together addition to the series. It felt rushed and needed to be run through an editor two or three more times to cut a lot of things and expand on others.

For example, the previous two books in the series had a good of timing when using fourth wall breaks this one did not. In the last novel, the narrator would address the reader sparingly and at a point in the story that added to the comical effect, very much in an “I know what you are thinking” sort of way. In this one, it was used in places that didn’t feel appropriate in the story and was used so often that it felt gimmicky as opposed to charming.

Another major problem is that this story is incredibly exposition heavy. Nearly every chapter has someone explaining who they are, why they are doing what they did or going through some unnecessary flashback. There’s an entire chapter that is told from another character’s perspective that could have been cut entirely and was simply there to spout a long ranting exposition, which was obviously intended to try to be character-building but was nothing but drawn out exposition that was already nicely summed up in the previous books. Ironically, it probably would have improved her character more if the author hadn’t included the chapter, allowing the reader to see the emotional response instead of being told about it.

Lastly, the “mystery” was completely pointless and unnecessary. The last two books weren’t exactly thrilling “whodunnit” novels either but the crimes in those stories helped further the plot and did ligitimately feel like they belonged in the book. The mystery factor in this book was almost non-existent to the point where it could have be scrapped entirely and just left this as a slice of life story. It really was completely pointless, added nothing and had the potential to be interesting if the author had devoted much more time to the mystery in his “mystery novel”.

The characters are still fun to read and I will give the author credit for having a sympathetic, though cliched, antagonist. It just wasn’t worth wading through the sea of exposition to get to them.

The voice acting is on point and just as well performed as the other two novels.

Erik has been able to write an Awesome story!

This is the 3rd instalment in dog Walter's take about the small business woman who's name I would Bitch let's just call her F. At the point she is well and truly in love with the Bitch woman she once called jerk cop on a posted it note. Now a much loved token between them especially with all the wrongful addressed F seems to find herself in the middle of, F is just talented that wa y , which is just One reason way unleaseshed is a pathway a minute. Like the whole series .