Mad Dogs - Hardcover

Brian Hodge

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1587671492 ISBN 13: 9781587671494

Publisher: Cemetery Dance Publications, 2007

Synopsis

From Brian Hodge, the author of the highly acclaimed Wild Horses, comes his long-awaited second crime novel, which once again finds him careening at whiplash speeds between black humor and the pounding heart of darkness.

Actor Jamey Sheppard may not be starving, but he's definitely struggling. His career has been one piddling role after another with names like Radical Dude #3. Still, as he's road-tripping from Los Angeles to Arizona to reunite with his fiancee for their wedding, the future looks brighter than gold.

Until a liquid lunch deputy turns the best day in his life into the worst.

But Jamey's no criminal. He's only played one on TV.

From the moment he's mistaken for Duncan MacGregor, the real-life renegade he's just portrayed in a re-enactment segment on American Fugitives, Jamey's life can never be the same. And so begins his sun-scorched odyssey through overnight media saturation celebrity and the national fascination with outlaws.

In his hideaway, Duncan MacGregor is watching, too. And he just has to meet the guy who relived his own worst moment in front of a nationwide audience.

Within days, in a twist that even American Fugitives couldn't have seen coming, their fates are intertwined, as they ricochet down a road filled with the world's dumbest bounty hunters, Hollywood deal-makers and wannabes, cops on both sides of the law, a metal-plated ex-con with a prehistoric outlook on life, an impromptu right-wing death squad, a merciless Jay Leno, and the most dangerous people of all when it comes to grudges and vengeance:

Family.

Staying on the run could be the best career move Jamey's ever made ... if he can just live long enough to sign on the dotted line.

About this title

About the Author:

Brian Hodge is the author of ten novels and close to 100 short stories. Recent books include Hellboy: On Earth As It Is In Hell (Pocket Books) and World of Hurt (Earthling Publications), which furthers his growing story cycle of the Misbegotten. Future works include his fourth story collection, a new novel that's underway, and further installments in the Misbegotten saga. He lives in Colorado, where he also indulges interests in music and sound design, photography, local microbrews, and mountain air.

Review:

At the start of Hodge's darkly comic second crime novel (after 1999's Wild Horses), smalltime actor Jamey Sheppard, who's driving from California to Arizona to get married, makes a fateful pit stop at a highway "Gulp 'n' Go," where a drunken deputy mistakes him for Duncan MacGregor, the real-life crook Sheppard played on TV's American Fugitives. After the deputy accidentally shoots himself dead in a pitiful effort to arrest Sheppard, our decent, bewildered hero goes on the lam. Trying to make sense of his senseless circumstances, Sheppard suffers numerous travails, including capture by a crazy family out for reward money. Meanwhile, back in Hollywood, Sheppard's malevolent younger sister plots to kill him so she can own total film rights to his ongoing story, which has attracted national attention... --Publishers Weekly

Like any actor, Jamey Sheppard wants to be famous. When he's mistaken for Duncan MacGregor, an on-the-lam criminal, Jamey gets what he wanted, but not quite the way he wanted. On the run from the law (he's the prime suspect in a cop's death), from Duncan (who wants to meet this guy who's getting his press), and even from the one cop in the country who's actually on his side, Jamey has to clear his own name while keeping himself out of his pursuers' clutches. This big, fast-paced thriller keeps Jamey and the reader on their toes from beginning to end. The book never quite goes where we think it's going to go, and by the time we figure out what Hodge is up to, we're completely hooked. Horror fans know Hodge's dark fiction Lies & Ugliness (2002) and World of Hurt (2006) but he's a new name to most crime-fiction readers. That deserves to change. This one is great fun. --Booklist

Hodge takes his time to tell his story, never once rushing to quick solutions, but also never letting the plot hit a lull, forever mixing up the action. As the novel goes along, Hodge ties up the loose ends with great aplomb, all the while amping up the thriller aspect. Mad Dogs is like a family trip if your family were the Mansons with an ending that delivers in all aspects, without taking the easy way out. --bookgasm.com

About this edition

• Publisher: Cemetery Dance Publications
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1587671492
• ISBN 13: 9781587671494
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 578