The Hand That Feeds You

Writing under the pseudonym A.J. Rich, Amy Hempel (Reasons to Live) and Jill Ciment (Heroic Measures) team up in this toothless mystery about murderous dogs and a “victimologist turned victim.” Morgan is a master’s student in forensic psychology studying how victims are chosen by their attackers. She is engaged to a man named Bennett, whom she met while conducting an online experiment about sexual predators—a red flag if there ever was one. One day Morgan returns to her Williamsburg apartment to find Bennett fatally mauled, presumably by her three beloved rescue dogs, two pit-bull mutts and a Great Pyrenees. From this taut, eerie opening, the tale gradually loses its fierceness. Morgan begins to doubt whether her blood-covered hounds could be capable of such aggression, and her suspicions only increase when she discovers that Bennett was keeping some rather significant secrets. In search of answers about her lover’s hidden life and gruesome death, she also tries to prevent her dogs from being put down, which slows her investigation and any narrative momentum. With its focus on sociopathy and overt references to Cholderlos de Laclos’s masterpiece of erotic manipulation, Dangerous Liaisons, the novel has the makings of a penetrating psychological thriller. Unfortunately, neither the perpetually blindsided heroine nor the paper-thin villain has the depth to redeem this perfunctory, and outlandish, mystery. [em](July) [/em]