Mad Dogs

Mad Dogsby Brian HodgeFrom Brian Hodge, the author of the highly acclaimed Wild Horses, comes hislong-awaited second crime novel, which once again finds him careening atwhiplash 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 RadicalDude #3. Still, as he's road-tripping from Los Angeles to Arizona to reunitewith his fiancée 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 renegadehe's just portrayed in a re-enactment segment on American Fugitives, Jamey'slife can never be the same. And so begins his sun-scorched odyssey throughovernight media saturation celebrity and the national fascination withoutlaws.In his hideaway, Duncan MacGregor is watching, too. And he just has to meetthe 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 seencoming, their fates are intertwined, as they ricochet down a road filledwith 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 prehistoricoutlook 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 hecan just live long enough to sign on the dotted line.

From Publishers Weekly

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. Acidic commentary on "reality crime" helps offset weak motivation (the hatred Sheppard and his sister feel for each other isn't sufficiently explained) and a convoluted resolution. (Dec.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

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. David PittCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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.

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