"Edgar award winner Theresa Schwegel returns with The Good Boy, her most dramatic and emotional novel to date, a family epic that combines the hard-boiled grit of her acclaimed police thrillers with an intimate portrait of a young boy trying to follow his heart in an often heartless city. For Officer Pete Murphy, K9 duty is as much a punishment as a promotion. When a shaky arrest reignites a recent scandal and triggers a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, all eyes are on Pete as the department braces for another media firestorm. Meanwhile, Pete's eleven-year-old son Joel feels invisible. His parents hardly notice him--unless they're arguing about his 'behavioral problems'--and his older sister, McKenna, has lately disappeared into the strange and frightening world of teenagerdom. About the only friend Joel has left is Butchie, his father's furry 'partner.' When Joel and Butchie follow McKenna to a neighborhood bully's party, illegal activity kicks the dog's police training into overdrive, and soon the duo are on the run, navigating the streets of Chicago as they try to stay one step ahead of the bad guys--bad guys who may have a very personal interest in getting some payback on Officer Pete Murphy"--
"Edgar award winner Theresa Schwegel returns with her most dramatic and emotional novel to date, a family epic that combines the hard-boiled grit of her acclaimed police thrillers with an intimate portrait of a young boy trying to follow his heart in an often heartless city. For Officer Pete Murphy, K9 duty is as much a punishment as a promotion. When a shaky arrest reignites a recent scandal and triggers a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, all eyes are on Pete as the department braces for another media firestorm. Meanwhile, Pete's eleven-year-old son Joel feels invisible. His parents hardly notice him--unless they're arguing about his 'behavioral problems'--and his older sister, McKenna, has lately disappeared into the strange and frightening world of teenagerdom. About the only friend Joel has left is Butchie, his father's furry 'partner.' When Joel and Butchie follow McKenna to a neighborhood bully's party, illegal activity kicks the dog's police training into overdrive, and soon the duo are on the run, navigating the streets of Chicago as they try to stay one step ahead of the bad guys--bad guys who may have a very personal interest in getting some payback on Officer Pete Murphy"--
When I initially saw The Good Boy on Netgalley, I will admit that the only reason I requested it is because I knew it featured a dog. I know, that’s bad, but I love books about dogs so that’s why I requested it. It’s been sitting on my Kindle a while and with all my ebooks cleared for the time being, I clicked on this one to read next!
I wasn’t entirely taken with The Good Boy, I will quite happily admit that I think it was a bit too clever for my liking. I followed the story pretty well when it was just Pete or Joel and Butchie we were following but when different police officers/gang members etc all got involved, I couldn’t seem to make head nor tail of what was going on. I just didn’t get how the story came about, how the story ended, I had no idea what was going on in those last few pages and I just finished it feeling totally confused.
There were good bits, I loved the way Schwegel presented Butchie and Joel’s relationship, that was really lovely and I will always turn to mush when it comes to a dog and its owners relationship, and I did enjoy reading of Pete’s journey to try and find his son, but the rest of it? I couldn’t keep up. I especially felt that McKenna and Sarah, Joel’s sister and mother, were wasted and didn’t seem to be part of the novel at all, except for a little bit, I would have expected a mother to be a bit more concerned than she was, but since she was numbed by alcohol, it’s not entirely surprising.
This book was just hard going for me. Sometimes I do like a grittier novel, but I like a grittier novel that I can keep up with and sadly I couldn’t keep up with The Good Boy. It was a difficult one, although there is one scene in particular that will stay with me forever involving a cat called Felix Catus and that I wish I’d never had to read. That was really bad, really harrowing and I know stuff like that happens in real life, but it’s stuff I’d rather not see/read/hear because it upsets me and I just do not understand how people can act that way towards animals. This will be much-loved I’m sure, and one critics will fall all over, but I found it was just too much for me to cope with and I finished it feeling more confused than when I’d started it.
