Let’s begin with a disclaimer. I like dogs as a group much better than I do people as a group. We, of course, bring our feelings and worldview to a work of art, and I brought a suitcase full of them to THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU, which, as one might gather from the title, has something to do with dogs. A.J. Rich, a collective pseudonym for critically acclaimed authors Amy Hempel and Jill Ciment, uses dogs as a linchpin in her grim and dark debut novel, which also features sociopaths, victims, and all sorts of unexpected twists and turns that will keep you reading, uninterrupted, from first page to last.

"A.J. Rich, a collective pseudonym for critically acclaimed authors Amy Hempel and Jill Ciment, uses dogs as a linchpin in her grim and dark debut novel, which also features sociopaths, victims, and all sorts of unexpected twists and turns that will keep you reading, uninterrupted, from first page to last."

THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU is narrated by Morgan Prager, one of the more complex characters you are likely to encounter in fiction this summer. Prager is barely 30 and in the midst of completing her thesis at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The topic of her study is “victim psychology,” which becomes interesting on several levels, as revealed, slowly and methodically, throughout the course of the book. Morgan is engaged to a somewhat enigmatic chap named Bennett, who doesn’t really care much for her three rescue dogs. Montreal is Bennett’s primary residence, but he visits New York frequently, and the book begins during one of those fateful visits. Morgan leaves Bennett sleeping in the apartment; upon her return, she finds her residence turned into a charnel house, with Bennett being the all-but-unrecognizable charnel and Morgan’s agitated pets covered in his blood. The dogs are immediately quarantined while a decision is made about what to do with them.

A good deal of the novel is devoted to Morgan’s efforts on her dogs’ behalf, part of which involves meeting a competent and dedicated attorney who specializes in dog justice, as well as a shelter worker whose empathy towards them matches Morgan’s own. With this going on, Rich, through Morgan, reveals quite a bit about Bennett, whose name isn’t really Bennett and who had a number of relationships going while he was seeing Morgan. Furthermore, virtually everything that Bennett told Morgan about his life was a lie. Morgan wasn’t aware of that, but did know that Bennett was controlling and manipulative to a fault. The question is raised, in the mind of both readers and (a half-step behind) Morgan: What was she doing with someone like that?

Morgan begins looking for answers about the man to whom she felt so close, finding and meeting his family (in a series of vignettes so painful that they have to be based on fact), along with Bennett’s other fiancées. When one of them is horribly murdered, though, it occurs to Morgan that she may be in a great deal of danger as well. Meanwhile, in the back of her mind, Morgan is convinced that her dogs, who never had exhibited a propensity for violence previously, could not have killed Bennett. If they didn’t, then who did?

THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU isn’t perfect. Some of the transitions in time and place are a bit jerky, and the concluding pages feel just slightly rushed, particularly since it looked as if things were heading in a completely new and dark direction. It could have ended a few pages or so early and been an entirely different book. I’m not sure which ending I would have preferred: the satisfying one that we get, or the one that would’ve left readers gasping. That’s not my call, though, and the ending (like the rest of THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU) is more than worthy of your attention.