It’s been a while since I had the pleasure of reading a novel by author Brian Hodge, but I can happily say I’ve broken that dry spell at last.  MAD DOGS, released in a signed and limited edition from Cemetery Dance Publications, is a whirlwind crime novel that takes a sort of backwards approach to most books of its type.  In most crime novels, you get a complex mystery, and you slowly wind your way from the clues to the conclusion.  In MAD DOGS the author takes a simple setting, an innocent event, and through a series of miscommunications, crazy characters, twists of fate and Machiavellian machinations, escalates the complexity and insanity of the plot as it develops.

I had to laugh when I realized how the initial mishap developed.  In fact, I’m going to provide you with a free short story of mine linked from here to show you WHY I laughed, eventually.  On his way to his own wedding, Jamey Sheppard stops to get gas near Flagstaff, Arizona.  While there, he encounters a counter boy who recognizes him from a Mountain Dew commercial, and a red-necked sheriff who also recognizes him.  Except, the sheriff has him mixed up with the character he played on a re-enactment show similar to “America’s Most Wanted.”  In the act of trying to apprehend his man, said sheriff manages to shoot himself with his own dropped gun, and the novel is off and running.

Before it’s over, brothers are trying to kill brothers, sisters are trying to kill brothers, brainless “artiste” film directors are trying to kill people and film it - rednecks are trying to get ransom money - and in the middle of it all two men are trying to get through the craziness and get their lives back.  It’s a novel with romance, violence, death and redemption.  There are CATS and cat lovers, funerals and swords…

The only thing wrong with this book is that it took so long to reach print.  It never slows down from the initial scene to the final, very satisfying resolution.

Brian Hodge’s characters feel real, gritty, and comfortable.  Even when he writes about people you probably don’t really want to meet, or those involved in things they should not be involved in, he brings out their humanity and makes it real in a way that draws you in and makes you a part of it all.  This novel is highly recommended.  You can order it by clicking the cover art above to visit THE HORROR MALL and searching BRIAN HODGE or MAD DOGS.

DNW