Unleashed

A Sydney Rye Series, Book 1

By: Emily Kimelman

Narrated by: Sonja Field

My dog once took a bullet that was intended for me. A bullet that ripped through his chest, narrowly missing his heart, and exited through his shoulder blade. This left him unconscious on the floor of my home. Amazingly, this bullet did not kill him.

Ten years ago, I adopted Blue after I broke up with my boyfriend one hot, early summer night with the windows open and the neighborhood listening. The next morning, I went straight to the pound in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Articles on buying your first dog tell you to never buy a dog on impulse. Going to the pound because you need something in your life that's worth holding onto is rarely, if ever, mentioned. I asked the man at the pound to show me the biggest dogs they had. He showed me some Rottweiler-German Shepherd puppies that he said would grow to be quite large. Then he showed me a six-month-old Shepherd that would get pretty big. Then he showed me Blue, the largest dog they had. He was as tall as a Great Dane, with the snout of a Collie, the markings of a Siberian Husky, the ears and tail of a Shepherd and the body of a wolf, with one blue eye and one brown.

Crouched in a sitting position, unable to lie down, and unable to sit all the way up, he looked at me from between the bars, and I fell in love. "I'll tell you, lady; he's pretty, but he's skittish. He sheds, and I mean sheds. I don't think you want this dog," the man told me. But I knew I had to have him. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I brought Blue home, and we lived together for years. He was, for most of our relationship, my only companion. But when I first met Blue, a lifetime ago now, I had family and friends. I worked at a crappy coffeehouse. I was young and lost; I was normal.

Back then, at the beginning of this story, before I'd ever seen a corpse, before Blue saved my life, before I felt what it was like to kill someone in cold blood, I was still Joy Humbolt. I'd never even heard the name Sydney Rye.

©2011 Emily Kimelman Gilvey (P)2014 Emily Kimelman Gilvey

Wait! This is just the previous 3 book

I like the author and her work. However this is just a replay of the Sydney Rye series I just listened to. Don’t buy it twice. Amazon, you suck!

Almost

Story was convoluted but fun. A couple of small details that just didn’t make sense (one simply having to do with a physical attribute of a specific dog breed) bothered me. And I didn’t like the fact that Joy/Sydney was not careful about who/when/how she had sex with someone. Maybe I’m a prude, but she came off as not smart about her personal life and even slightly slutty.

Great, Suspenseful and Enjoyed

I started listening to Book 1 of 3 series Unleashed by Emily Kimelman, my very first Audible book since becoming a member. I highly recommend this series. It is suspenseful, has twists and turns and overall a great story to listen to. I also really enjoyed the narrator Sonja Field. You will not be sorry.

New York In The Suspense Mix

I enjoyed the story mostly because it was written and narrated so well, but also because it was set in NY. It flowed along nicely and held surprises that kept me engaged.

The characters were well thought out and I cared about what happened to them, especially Blue the dog!! Not the bad guys though.

Narrator Sonja Field was brilliant, she mastered all the various voices and NY accents!
Looking forward to reading/listening to more from Emily Kimelman and the Sydney Rye series.

Half cozy, half crazed

I bought it because of the dog, but he's a minor sidekick in the tale, which starts as an urban cozy and switches, mid-story, into something more ragged and wild. Enjoying this story requires major suspension of disbelief. I don't think that the police would fail to test the blood at a crime scene, for instance, even if the fix is in.

Instead, dog-walker turned crime fighter figures it out largely on her own, with the dog by her side, once taking a bullet for her. That's not a spoiler, as the narrator reveals this detail-to-come on the first page.

About the much-maligned narrator. Calm down, people. Yes, she starts out slowly, maybe too slowly, but she speeds up and inhabits a great variety of New York voices with agility and charm. I like her.

And I like this story. I especially like how every time I was thinking we were hip deep in the weeds of stereotypes, the writer pulled past them with surprises.