Brian Lindenmuth reviews: Mad Dogs by Brian Hodge
One of the best things about Mad Dogs is the great premise that lies at its core. A man who portrayed a criminal on TV is mistaken for that criminal then is involved in an accidental shooting of a cop. The paths of the actor and the criminal he portrayed intersect then run together.
One thing that can be distracting at times with Mad Dogs is the large cast of quirky secondary characters. They become defined, in large part, by their gimmicks. As a result they come off as inconsequential and ultimately forgettable.
But there are bigger problems that dog the book that run just a bit deeper then two dimensional characters. After the exiting first chapter there is a certain level of dramatic tension that has been built up, and is expected to be built upon and utilized in subsequent chapters, that quickly gets squandered. It's hard when a book releases the dramatic tension that's been built up then expects the reader to just buy into an artificial rebuilding of it.
This ties into another problem that is tangential to the loss of dramatic tension, the loss of momentum. A certain level of kineticisim has been built up by the time that Jamey and Duncan have met and the easy loss of a pursuer leads them to a state of inertia that lulls the middle part of the book. Unfortunately Mad Dogs never quite manages to recover from that loss of momentum.
Ultimately Mad Dogs is a sprawling ambitious novel with a great premise that spins out of control at times but still entertains on a lot of levels. It may take some sifting to find the flakes of gold, but they are there. This is Hodges first crime novel and if Mad Dogs isn't yet enough to make us shout 'There's gold in them thar hills' I feel certain that Hodges future crime novels will.