Troublemaker: A Novel

This book is 3/4 about throwing a ball to a dog and the dogs eating schedule! Maybe 25 pages of suspense?! Don't waste your $. If you have to read it go to the library and check it out for free.

I read the summary and thought, ok, I like a good book with a dog. I love dogs. Have had several myself. I've also read numerous Linda Howard books. Some I really liked and some I just liked. This one I Hated. If you want to read about a dog ruling everyone, even the town, then go for it. This book was just as ridiculous as some kids movie with talking dogs. The main H is a tough guy, mysterious, James Bond esque. Then he became the total opposite. Yes he's hurt and still the dog is number one for even something like the front seat of a vehicle. Anyone who owns a dog and is a good owner, will know that in no way was anyone but the dog alpha in this situation. That it was soooo smart is just ridiculous. I read a whole book about a dog and its self centered, one dimensional owner. Could someone, maybe the author, have explained why the "brother" and h hated each other in such a juvenile way? If I could have I would have returned it. Not sure why I even finished it. I guess since I really like Linda Howard I though maybe it would turn around and become a real book at some point. Unless you are a 12 year old girl who loves dogs this book is best left on shelf. There is an older book with a spy showing up hurt with a women to heal him and a dog that is much, much better. Even it showing its age Diamond Bay is a better read from Linda Howard. Not sure Linda Howard even wrote this one.

I want everyone to know that Linda Howard used to be one of my favorite authors. I read all her early books over the years she was a prolific novelist, progressing to her last really god book Shadow Woman. Then she wrote about three totally unreadable books.....took a sabbatical and came back after a few years with Troublemaker. My hopes were high. My adrenaline was rushing for another Mr. Perfect or anything good by a woman who was blessed with so much talent.Tiny synopsis: A special ops agent, Morgan Yancy is shot and recuperates in a small town in the home of Police Chef "Bo" Maran. She spends most of the book alternating falling in love with Morgan and loving her uber intelligent Golden retriever Trix even more. Here is where part of the problem hits. This is a book about her dog. I love dogs. I had a dog.Her novel Open Season introduced a Golden Puppy named Midas, and it added to the storyline because it was not overused to the point of aud nauseum. It was a funny cute puppy that made the book one of my favorites.Almost every paragraph has something the dog did...what it is thinking.....to the point I wanted to run screaming into the night!Linda-if you want to write a book about Golden Retrievers because you own them all these years be my guest. Do a Marley and Me or a manual on how to take care of them but for Gods sake you cannot make a canine the heroine and lead character in a book!There should have been a good mystery on who shot Morgan,with some action but truth be told this book is the epitome of blah and bland and boring.Linda used to make her characters three dimensional to where you either loathed them or liked them but I was left feeling indifferent to all of them and being an animal lover I got to the point I could not stand the dog!There is a domestic dispute thrown in for filler obviously. the small town characters are pretty boring also when they could have been useful to the storyline but I do not feel there was one.Morgan had a little dare I say....charisma but it got lost in his love of dog. The townspeople made the retreiver the star of a parade. Do you get my drift now on where this novel headed....into crazy land.Bo needed more of something as she had almost no personality to speak of. She was brunette with thick hair and a lush mouth. She got in one brawl related to the domestic dispute and Ms. Howard dragged that out for as many pages as she could.They let you know who is the would be killer right at the start. There are no real reasons and very little action.This is the first book where there are sex scenes that could put you to sleep. Give me some After the Night or one of her early westerns like a Lady of the West. Even one of her first novels, a Harlequin Romance named Loving Evangeline was hot.I don't need sex but I do need chemistry between the two leads and there was zero chemistry.I won't give any spoilers. The book is basically devoid of them also. The one mean man.....I would have loved to have more of him to spice this up was Morgan's boss Axel who was once the stepbrother of Bo. They hate each other and some good verbal sparring would have helped.I read about 20 pages a day it was that boring. I forced myself to finish this trifle light because I still reread Linda's good books and I admire the many wonderful ones she penned.Sometimes people dry out and its time to call it a day. After trudging through Troublemaker I really believe the time has come.I want to end this by saying I treasure so many of the books she has written is was hard for me to write this review. Hell.....if she wrote another novel I would get it just in case it was like the old days. God bless them.

Disappointed. Linda Howard has written better books. The plot is weak. Bo's (female character) relationship with her step brother is totally unbelievable. Much of the book is focused on Tricks, the dog genius. I like dogs, but I don't want to know what the dog eats, when the dog eats, how the dog reacts to everything, etc. I was looking for a relationship story between a man and woman. I suggest you pass on this one unless you want a story about a dog.

Having read the other reviews I was unsure whether to buy this book or not but having now read it I am glad I did. I really quite enjoyed it. Unlike most of Linda Howard's books this one is quite slow starting and that is the reason I have only given it 4 stars but once you get into it the pace picks up and it is thoroughly enjoyable.I did not dislike the dog that a lot of the reviewers complained about. She was mentioned a few to many times to begin with but she did become a favourite part of the book for me from about half way through.I would tell anyone thinking about buying this book that it is well worth a read but be prepared for a slow beginning.

Reading previous reviews while deciding whether to buy the book, made me think that there was nothing wrong with being enthusiastic about a dog. So I bought the book. Wow. There are A LOT of references to the dog and I found myself skipping pages that were solely dedicated to the dog. However the story is still brilliant and I enjoyed reading it. I liked the pace in which the relationship developed and it made me smile.

The amount of time Howard dedicates to extraneous detail about a particularly boring dog is maddening. For the first half of the book, I skipped three or four 'dog' pages to every one page of plot/character development. As for the latter half, well I'm afraid I gave up, I couldn't cope with any more repetitive cataloging of how many times a ball bounced per throw or how intelligent this pooch was supposed to be.As for the female and male ptotagonists, they seemed dull and overshadowed by their canine friend. In fact, they spend more time focused on the mutt than each other. Consequently, I never got a real sence of who they were and didn't care enough about them to read on.Perhaps the book improves towards the end but I had given up on the characters by then - something I rarely do. This is far below Howard's usual standard, particularly her earlier work.

Very slow to start and did not really get much better as time went on. I was really disappointed as up to now I had really enjoyed all her books. Feels like someone else wrote this story.

This is not as bad as some of the reviews would have you believe, it's not up there with Cry no more or Death Angel ( my personal favourites of this author). However it is an enjoyable read and the focus on the dog is just reflecting the heroines obsession with her dog, the relationship with our hero developed slowly and was believable, strangely enough I enjoyed it more reading it 2nd time!