Run With the Hunted 3: Standard Operating Procedure

Run with the Hunted #3

by Jennifer R. Donohue

In the fast-paced, tech-heavy future, the rich are richer, and even more careless. Dolly is practically legit, recovering abandoned sports cars from parking lots around Dubai, and selling them off after a little tech magic from Bits. When Bristol catches wind of an auction for the most expensive dog in the world, it’s an opportunity they don’t want to miss. What could be more fun than a dog heist? But things really go south when it’s about handoff time, and this super simple dog heist gets a little more deadly.

121 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 31, 2020

About the author

Jennifer R. Donohue grew up at the Jersey Shore and now lives in central New York with her husband and their Doberman. A member of the SFWA, she works at her local public library where she also facilitates a writing workshop. Her work has appeared in Apex Magazine, Escape Pod, Fusion Fragment, and elsewhere. Her debut novel, Exit Ghost is available now. She tweets @AuthorizedMusin and you can subscribe to her Patreon for a new short story every month: https://www.patre-
on.com/JenniferRDonohue

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe the real heist is the friends we made along the way.

Donohue puts the team back together again for a fun, quick thieving of an expensive and unusual treasure. This time, we're treated to Dolly's constantly alert, sometimes hilarious, inner world, and I have to say, I think she might be my favorite of the three.

While I got a little lost near the end with who was shooting at them and why, this didn't detract much from the whole escapade. This is less about the actual theft and payoff than the people we've gotten to know and love throughout the series.

Also, dog. Who doesn't love a story with a dog?

[Margaret Adelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I reviewed the first two in this series, so when the author offered me the third, I was happy to accept!

The writing style of this one definitely differed in tone from the first two. Dolly has a wandering train of thought that can go off on random tangents for entire paragraphs. It was an interesting dynamic, though it did have the side effect of making the action become very muddied. Often it would take a moment to remember where they were or what they were doing after an entire paragraph of her reminiscing about home in the middle of escaping a gunman.

The character dynamic between the three is the most explored in this book, particularly with the arguments between Dolly and Bristol. There was also more mentions of them feeling defensive of each other, although I still don't know that I would call it a full found family. There was always something extra missing, like each of them was trying too hard to be the cool, aloof career criminal to allow for sentimentality.

There is a cute dog involved and the writing does a very good job of explaining just how cute of a dog she is, which is always a plus. People who like dog stories in general will probably like this one just for that fact.

I can't say exactly what makes this one my least favorite of the trilogy so far. Maybe it was the fact that the first was introducing the fun concepts and the second was by my favorite character of the three, so this one was always going to fall into last place. Or maybe there was something about the writing style that kept the sentimental aspects it brought up from coming across emotionally. There were times that the plot felt too compressed, like a novel being forced into a novella sized hole.

Even with that, though, I did enjoy this book. And I would definitely check out the author's other work in the future.

[Teresa Ardrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now, Dolly is my favorite of the three. If you saw my review for Ctrl Alt Delete, then you know what I am talking about. Pretty impressive that three books can be about the same three characters, while each book is very distinctly the specific character's POV. Run with the Hunted is Bristol, Ctrl Alt Delete is Bits and now Standard Operating Procedure is Dolly. And in each one, we learn a little bit more about this group, through their own eyes and through their partners' eyes.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a quick light read, that went light instead of dark. an unexpected but nice touch in these trying times.
I kind of of hope this series continues.

[J. Z. Kelley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dolly's book is not at all what I expected. It's ... nice? Which feels weird for the traumatized ex-supersoldier-turned-criminal-weapons-and-vehicles-expert who spent most of the precious books salivating over the prospect of facing off against multiple black ops organizations, but I'm here for it.

For the uninitiated: Run With the Hunted is a cyperpunk novella series about a group of friends ("associations," Bristol would say) who travel the world, bicker, take care of each other, and sometimes steal literally priceless objects. Each novella is narrated by one of the friends: book one is Bristol's, book two is Bits's, and book three is (finally!!!!!) Dolly's. Also, Dolly is the best.

In RWTH 3: Standard Operating Procedure, Bristol is still coping with the events of book two, and the rest of her team decides to help her out with that by going along with her very good, very smart, very well considered plan to steal the world's most expensive dog. Even though none of them know how to take care of a dog. Even though they don't really know why this particular dog is so valuable or who's going to be paying them to get her.

This is not important to the plot, but I feel like potential readers should be aware: There are actually two dogs in this book. One is a robot. Both are very good dogs. Neither dies. Like I said, this is a nice book.

In a lot of ways, Standard Operating Procedure feels a prequel. The stakes are lower, and as the most contemplative member of the team, Dolly's narration is full of flashbacks and character details. We learn what Dolly thinks her life would have looked like if not for the super-solider program, and we learn more about what her life actually has looked like until this point.
The memories of her childhood in the rural south deliver a pitch-perfect blend of nostalgia and despair and yearning. Then someone from her childhood shows up in her present, and that's perfect too, tense and hopeful and sometimes hilarious.

Other highlights include the incredible action sequence on a bridge that I will be writing fanfiction about until I die and the way Donohue always writes dogs as though she is the world's foremost dog expert. (She is.)

I'd recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed the previous two, as well as to people who are on the fence. If you wanted book one to deliver more found family feelings and you wanted book two to explain things more clearly, you will love book three. Hell, I love this book and its big, tough, secretly soft narrator so much that I'd recommend reading the first two books just to get this one, and I loved the first two books. The only bad thing I can say about this one is that I'm going to have to wait through two more books to return to Dolly's narration.

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kind of a more silly heist, loved getting into Dolly’s head here. I really like that these aren’t over complicated double crossing stories, this team really has each other’s backs although they seem to have trouble admitting it to each other. ❤️