THE MORE THE TERRIER

Lawyer Andy Carpenter leaves the comfort of Paterson, New Jersey, to defend a Rutgers student accused of killing his professor.

Brian “BJ” Bremer quarreled with his mentor, Prof. Steven Rayburn, over the grade on one of his assignments. That’s no big deal, of course, but Middlesex County prosecutor Timothy Nabers wants a jury to believe it’s the reason BJ beat Rayburn to death in the professor’s home. Apart from the flimsy motive, the evidence is dismayingly strong. The cops found BJ—who claims Rayburn broke protocol by summoning him to an off-campus meeting—standing over his professor’s bloody corpse, and a search of the student’s apartment reveals a hidden stash of cash and Rayburn’s Rolex, which BJ claims somebody planted. Luckily, Murphy, a foster terrier Andy had farmed out to BJ’s mother, finds his way back to Andy’s home just in time for Christmas and moves him, as urged by his tenderhearted wife, Laurie Collins, to wrestle BJ’s defense away from James Howarth, a do-nothing attorney who’s being paid by unnamed sources who want BJ to take a plea deal that will release him from prison in plenty of time to collect Social Security. Despite the evidence against his client, the whole setup stinks to high heaven, and it’s not long before Andy links Rayburn to a trio of online assailants and a serious Russian mobster the prosecution dutifully pooh-poohs. The unmasking of the killer is a soggy climax to a case that’s not exactly loaded with surprises, but the road there is consistently amusing.

Yes, yes, dogs and Christmas. But fans will know that no one does low-rent courtroom drama like Rosenfelt.