Unleashed, A Sydney Rye Mystery #1

CHAPTER 1

By Emily Kimelman

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, effectively shattering it. This left him unconscious on the floor of my home. Amazingly, this bullet did not kill him.

Ten years ago I adopted Blue as a present to myself 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 never to buy a dog on impulse. They want you to be prepared for this new member of your family, to understand the responsibilities and challenges of owning a dog. Going to the pound because you need some- thing 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 seven-week-old 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. The man called him a Collie mix and he was stuffed into the biggest cage they had, but he didn't fit. He was as tall as a Great Dane but much skinnier, 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, unable to sit all the way up, he looked at me from between the bars, and I fell in love.

"He's still underweight," the man in the blue scrubs told me as we looked at Blue. "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." But I knew I wanted him. I knew I had to have him. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

Blue cost me $108. I brought him 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.

Click to listen to an excerpt of the audiobook narrated by Sonja Field

P.S. The dog does not die.

P.S. The dog does not die.

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Sydney Rye Mysteries books 1 to 8 in eBook format.

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Sydney Rye is a whole new class of female heroine! Tough as nails and just as deadly!

When bullets were flying I felt the need to duck. I read this entire series in less than 5 days.

Made me laugh, cry, chew my nails and kept me up all night reading.

I was hooked by nuanced and complex characters, surprising twists and turns and plenty of action.

Great characters, sizzling adventures and the battle between good and evil

This series of books has kept me riveted to my Kindle for the past few days

How Sydney Rye was born...

I walked dogs during my college years, which is an unusual profession. I would go into people’s homes and take care of their pets, but I never met the owners. I saw pictures in their house and would recognize them in public, but they had no idea what I looked like. This strange anonymity was perfectly suited to a murder investigation, and the original plot for Sydney Rye was born.

I hope you’ll join me and millions of readers who have followed one young woman’s journey from a dog walker on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to an international fugitive, fighting for justice around the globe, with her loyal dog, Blue, by her side.